I felt sick. I felt disgusted. I felt a massive wave of revulsion.
Monica was rocking now. The thumping music and the trashy cars and the trashy guys were all too much for her. She reminded me of a child sitting in her bedroom and listening to her parents fighting downstairs. Listening and rocking and suffering.
I waited another half hour, watching Monica, watching the door, watching the waves of men coming and going. Danny remained inside.
I was having a hard time believing Danny had come all this way to a strip club. There were clubs a lot closer than this. Not as sleazy, certainly, but a lot closer. So why had Danny driven nearly an hour to go to this shit hole? I didn't know, but I was going to find out.
I started the car and left.
Monica rocked in her seat nearly the entire way home.
Chapter Thirty-seven
I comforted Monica with hugs and hot tea.
When she seemed stable again, I called my ex-partner. He was more than up to the challenge of watching over Monica again. In fact, I suspected he might have been waiting eagerly by his phone, since he had snatched it up on the first ring.
Thirty minutes later, with Monica in good (if not adoring) hands, I made my way over to Kingsley's massive estate. Franklin the Butler did not seem pleased to see me this late, and I once again followed his slightly off-kilter, loping gait. This time to the kitchen, where I found Kingsley sitting at a round corner table, working on a double-stuffed ham sandwich. Sitting across from him was a glass of red wine. Mine, I assumed, although I rarely drank red wine since it gave me stomach cramps. Too many impurities.
Kingsley thanked the butler, who expressed his love of servitude with words dripping with sarcasm, and disappeared down a side hallway. To where, I had no clue. No doubt a servant's quarter.
Or perhaps a stone slab with straps and thick cables attached to some sort of medieval antennae on the roof.
Or not.
As I stepped into the kitchen, Kingsley set aside the heavy-looking sandwich and got up and gave me a hug and a light kiss on the lips. The light kiss was my idea. I turned my head, since I wasn't in much of a kissing mood. Kingsley indicated the chair across from him, and as I sat, I realized the glass wasn't full of wine, it was full of something else.
It was full of blood.
Saliva burst instantly from under my tongue. I might have even licked my lips. Might have.
Kingsley was watching me. "You don't have fangs."
"What an odd thing to say to a girl," I said, keeping my eyes on the hemoglobin-filled goblet. Say that three times in a row.
"I noticed it the other night, in bed, when we were kissing. Your teeth are normal."
"Gee, thanks."
"But I thought vampires had fangs," he pushed.
"And I thought vampires existed only in teen romance novels."
He chuckled lightly and let it go. I noticed the blood in the goblet was beginning to congeal a little along the surface, sticking to the inside of the thick glass. It was just blood. Disgusting blood. But it was the only thing I could consume comfortably. It was the only thing that gave me nourishment. And now, over the course of six years, blood had become my comfort food. Hell, it had become my only food, My everything. My stomach was doing back flips.
God, I was such a fucking ghoul.
"Drink, honey," he said. As he spoke, he used some strange German accent. Oh?
"Who's blood is it?" I asked.
"Does it matter?" His voice was back to normal.
He was right, of course. I had discovered that the source of the blood mattered not at all. Human, animal, warm, cold. It all had the same effect on me: it nourished me deeply.
I picked up the glass and drank deeply. The blood was warm. It was fresh, too. Something had recently died. Blood has a unique texture and I have grown to both love and loathe it. Good blood, fresh blood, is heavenly. The blood I normally drank, blood provided to me from a local butchery, was filled with all sorts of disgusting "extras", which I constantly found myself spitting out.
Yum.
My account with the butchery was more or less a secret account. The butchery was in Chino Hills, and six years ago, I had convinced the owner I was a vet assistant and that I was involved with animal blood research. He hadn't asked questions, and I hadn't provided any more info other than that. The blood arrived monthly and I paid the exorbitant bill. Meals on wheels.
With that said, this blood was flawless, minus one or two coagulated lumps. I drank from the goblet steadily, briefly unable to pull away from it. Salty and metallic, it coated the inside of my mouth, filling the spaces between my teeth. I didn't need to come up for air because I really didn't breathe.
I drank steadily, greedily, happily.
When the goblet had been half-drained, I forced myself to set it down in front of me, and burped.
"Hungry?" asked Kingsley.
"Usually," I said.
"So how often do you eat?" asked Kingsley, and I silently thanked him for not using the word "feed". The word rubbed me the wrong way. Animals feed. Monsters feed. Ladies with degrees in criminal justice, who had two wonderful children and a successful private eye firm didn't feed. We drank, even if our food was liquified.
A smoothie from hell.
"I'm hungry every night," I said, shrugging. "Like most people."
"Most people eat during the day."
"You know what I mean," I said, picking up the glass again. "Asshole."
He grinned. "Do you eat every day?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because the packets of animal blood disgust me."
"I've seen your packets," he said, shuddering. "Revolting." He looked at me some more, his sandwich looking miniscule in his oversized hands. "So, then, is it safe to say that you go as long as you can without eating?"
"Yes."
"And how long can you go without eating?"
"Three or four days."
"And then you have to eat."
I nodded, tilting the glass up to my lips, reveling in the purity of the blood, letting it coat my tongue, the roof of my mouth.
"Do you ever worry that you will go too long between meals, and find yourself so hungry that you might do something stupid?"
"Like kill someone?" I asked.
"That would be something stupid, yes."
"I'm not worried," I said. "Not really. I'm generally always close to a source of blood. When I'm hungry enough, I just pop open a packet."
"There might come a day when you don't have such a ready source of blood."
"Maybe," I said. "But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."