90)

I could hear doors slamming off on the road and a murmur of voices cut off by a shrill shout “Shut up and follow me.”

Constance was of course the very picture of a vamp. Tall and slender except for an amazing bust. Long tumbling near white blonde hair. Blood red lips and a perfect, pale complexion.

She came striding down my driveway in a short, tight blue dress and matching heels. Turning her head from side to side as she leisurely examined my home and its grounds, while steadily ignoring me.

The people with her seemed to follow along behind her with a few state police and larger men bunched around her. Most of the rest of them seemed to be just random people. Men and women. Teens all the way up to oldsters.

A handful of them were in matching uniforms from the Scottish fast food place, and from the look of them they had been at work. Did she just go in and take everyone from a restaurant? I didn’t see any kids. Were there just none there, or did she take their parents and leave them behind?

I realize she had stopped and was looking at me with an increasingly sharp look of annoyance as I had been standing there looking at her blankly without saying a word. Hopefully she was taking that as some kind of power play.

“A bit early for you isn’t it? You had to have been pretty close to get here this soon after dark. Should I be flattered?”

She gave me a wry look as she began to talk with a faint hint of some kind of accent. “I was in the area and realized I could take care of a minor errand before I left the state.” She looked me up and down like she had just finished a token dinner so she could move on to her dessert.

Since I was a young man I had always wanted a woman who looked like that, to look at me like that, but now?

She had stopped a good twenty feet away and it was all I could do to choke back the urge to vomit. The girl from the store. Covington. Solomen. None of them had reeked as bad as her. Even all three of them together wouldn’t have been as bad as her.

If what I was smelling was the pheromones vampire put out, then the stench must be because she was controlling this many people. I had to wonder if throwing her in the lake would free them.

But I guess that’s why she had the dozen or so big guys around her. Human shields.

I slowly shook my head at her. “Look at where I live miss. Do you think I could afford a place like this by being weak or caring how many people I had to hurt?” I gestured at her victims. “There are two ways this night ends. With me calling for a backhoe to bury the mess, or with you and I coming to an arrangement.”

She didn’t look away, but she did blink. “Whatever did you have in mind?” As she spoke she drew one fingertip along the top of her dress and down her breast. Was she…?

I realized she must not have ever never been around one of my kind before. At least not without them being unconscious or locked up. She had to have no clue how much she stank to me and others like me.

Tilting my head to one side I asked her. “That depends on why you need my blood. Are you just another addict looking for a fix, or is it for the value of the blood itself?”

She looked mildly offended. “While I enjoy a bit of a thrill, especially with a vintage that would come from one as old as you. It’s the value of it that I can offer to others to secure me a place in a new city that I need.” She examined me closely. “Did you think you could get out of this by bribing me with money?”

The vampire began to laugh. “Oh, you must be younger than you look if you think money means anything to me. I can walk into any bank and just ask some new friends to give me all that I need. No, this is a matter of blood, the only thing of true worth to an immortal.”

Crap. Crap, Crap. Crap. So much for the plan to negotiate to buy some time by bribing her. I need another play here…

I shrugged as casually as I could. “So why not make this work for both of us?”

She looked confused. “And how would we do that?”

I gave her my “You’ll get the joke any second now.” grin. “There’s a market with a demand for werewolf blood. And I have the means of production.”

Taking my hands from my pockets and waving them around. I began to lay out a scheme that I hoped would sound intriguing enough to keep her from starting anything long enough for Adora to get here.

“First I scout out a few locals and turn them. Then, if they know what's good for them. I cut one of them in and give them the job of collecting a monthly supply of the good stuff. Maybe not as good as mine, but still what your customers need. You can arrange with your own people for collection and transportation."

"Then you handle distribution. I can even include some of my own blood once a month to keep your best customers sweet and turning a blind eye to how much you’re moving. All you have to do is keep me steadily supplied with the money that is so easy for you...”

She finally stopped me by holding up one hand and smiling. “That sounds like a great plan. But commerce is beneath me. I think I will just go with my plan and take you for a steady supply.”

She waved at the big guys all around her. “Boys...”

That’s when Covington, the head of the Redd’Smart meat department, touched bottom in the river behind me and came in contact with my land. Which finally made me aware of his presence on my land after floating in the waters for however long he had been out there.

I guess water does cut off the smell.