16: V Is For Vampire

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Protip for Vampires #277: Do not underestimate the power of the glammer.

There was a bag over my head. Beatrice had insisted I wear it, and since there is no arguing with Beatrice on pain of pain, well... there was a bag on my head. Only then did she lead me out of the car to God knows where.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"You can either walk, or I can cut off your legs and drag you," Beatrice hissed, her hand on my shoulder firmly guiding me up a short set of stairs told me that the choice had been made for me. "That's me being friendly."

Needless to say, Beatrice didn't inspire much confidence. I was already a little leery since she had lied about the whole "possession not being a real thing" and gone ahead and struck some type of deal with Ibrahaim-the-brain-parasite. My so-called-saviour might end up being my biggest threat. How fucked up is that, right?

I vowed to get away from Beatrice as soon as I could. Maybe she knew how to get Ibrahaim out of my head, but maybe that also involved removing my head to achieve that goal. So far her agenda seemed to be about keeping me alive, which aligned perfectly with my own need to stay alive, but at some point, all good things had to end, and I didn't plan to stick around for that.

She did throw you off the roof, Ibrahaim reminded me from the back of my mind. He had quieted down, lying in wait, possibly for his chance to take over.

Now that I've met you, I think it was you she threw off the roof, I thought back at him, and that shut him up.

I was honestly getting used to the sense of not-knowing-where the fuck I was going when Beatrice's hand on my shoulder, pressed down and put an end to our trip. The previously mentioned and despised black bag was ripped from off my head a little more roughly than was strictly called for. I squinted against the sudden light while my eyes adjusted. The first thing I made out was an annoyed Beatrice– wait, no, that's a lie. The very first thing I noticed was the big fucking mostly-dead-Christmas tree that dominated the room like a Christmas tree in April. It was huge, had too many lights on and was a fire hazard waiting to explode into flames. Beatrice had a halo, just from standing in front of the damned tree, that's how bright it was.

Done with me, Beatrice glanced over her shoulder to where King gently removed an identical black bag from Sammy's head. The two of them smiled shyly and sweetly at each other, still mutually enamoured. Seriously Sammy, what the fuck?

Meredith on the other hand, gawked at the ginormous Christmas tree that dominated the middle of the room. Her hair wasn't even messed up.

"Did she even get a bag?" I complained.

"Nope!" Beatrice responded. "She's special, you're not, so deal with it."

That hurt. "I need to file a complaint about unequal hostage treatment," I glared daggers at Beatrice, but she didn't give a fuck.

We were in a huge wood-panelled banquet hall with three-storey high ceilings. A series of six twenty-foot windows were evenly spaced on three sides of the room. The sight of them triggered my newly acquired vampire paranoia, since they seemed designed for the sole purpose for a hero to dramatically rip down the ornately embroidered heavy green curtains at just the right moment to let in a blaze of sunlight that would instantly incinerate any vampires inside the room. Kind of a big red flag is what I'm saying.

There was a wooden crest with very finely detailed carving of a bat and wolf that looked very familiar, in a "had seen the same damned thing at Countess Vera's House of the Dead" kind of way. There was a gigantic V on the crest this time.

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