Page 6
“Huh?”
Cat nods. “Your mum’s family, the Stewarts, go almost as far back as ours. Their rep is good too, but they’re not known for being delicious.”
“What?” My voice cracks on the shout, but it’s hard to care right now.
“Yeah. It’s one of the reasons vampires like us so much. Our blood tastes really good.”
“Oh my god,” I whisper, then follow it up with, “Do you have anything stronger than hot chocolate?”
My cousin laughs as though I’m being funny. “Relax, Adz. Nobody’s going to hold you down and drain every drop of blood from your veins. You still control who drinks from you, how much, and when.”
The blood draining thing hadn’t even occurred to me, but now it’s all I can think of. “Liquor, Catrina. Now. Where?”
She shrugs. “I don’t have any here. I don’t really drink anymore, since Nisha’s sober and can’t feed if I do. I don’t miss it, either.”
I’m momentarily sidetracked by the news that her boss—master? Overlady?—drinks blood but not alcohol. Is it a medical or cultural thing, or a simple choice? Fuck, is it a religious thing?
“Do vampires have religion? Like, is there a vampire god that they pray to about needing more humans to feed on?”
Cat looks at me like I’m crazy. “Don’t be stupid. Of course there isn’t a vampire god. Vampires were all born human. Some of them still believe in the religions they were raised with.”
My eye twitches. A religious zealot with an urge to drink human blood sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Finally, Cat seems to notice I’m freaked out. “You don’t have to do this,” she assures me. “I thought it would be a good choice for you because you only have to be polite for forty minutes a day, and the rest of the time you can be yourself. The pay’s good, the hours are good, and you can finally live somewhere there’s no chance of you getting infected with some new species of mould.”
“I don’t think mould’s an infection,” I mutter, though I don’t actually know. Maybe it is.
“But you don’t have to. You can crash here tonight and in the morning go home and start looking for another job. No hard feelings on my part, I swear.”
“Except then someone comes to find me to wipe my memories of this conversation.”
“Nah.” She flips a hand. “We’re legacies, Adam. That only happens to newbies. The Association knows that people like us grow up knowing vampires exist and can be trusted with it.”
There’s one flaw in that statement. “I didn’t.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like your parents planned an attack. Maybe they took it a bit far, completely cutting off their families and not letting you even know we existed, but they’re allowed to decide they don’t want to be feeders. People do it all the time. Hell, my sister’s not a feeder. She’s an engineer—I’ve told you that.”
“So… being a legacy doesn’t mean I have an obligation to be a feeder?”
Cat scoffs. “Fuck, no. This is just another type of family business, Adz. Is the family disappointed when one of the kids picks a different career? Sure. Do they still love them and feel proud of their achievements? Of course.”
I’m so confused. “Then why did my parents move nine hundred kilometres away and never speak to their family again?”
“No clue.” She shrugs. “You’d have to ask them.”
Yeah, nah.
“Listen,” Cat says, “you don’t have to decide anything right now. Let me get you a pillow and blanket. Get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning you can decide if you want to meet Nisha or not. No pressure. Even after you meet her, you can still go home and never think about this again.”
I snort, because the likelihood of that happening is nil. I could walk away, get another shitty job, move countries, join a circus… and the whole time, I’d be thinking about the fact that vampires exist.
“Thanks” is all I say. Cat’s trying to be nice. “Hey, wait. Shouldn’t we go talk to your boss now, while it’s dark?”
Cat stares blankly at me. “Why?”
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but, “Won’t she be, like, sleeping or whatever when the sun rises?”
Her cackle of laughter is the first sign that maybe my favourite horror movies got it wrong. “Vampires don’t need to sleep, Adz.”
