Deathtrap (Crossbreed #3)(98)
I snorted. “Or he doesn’t care for going to fancy balls.”
Gem twirled in a circle and then stopped. “Everyone likes balls.”
I buried a laugh. “Why so glum?”
“I won’t have my buddy to keep me company.” Her violet lips turned down. “He always saves me from the awkward socialites who engage in dull conversations about how wretched modern-day living is compared to the Middle Ages when they had public beheadings and ate with their hands.”
My gaze dragged up to the arched ceiling, and I marveled at the way the candlelight danced across every crevice of stone. Even though visiting my father and saying good-bye was the hardest thing I’d ever done, it had finally given me peace. The same kind of peace you feel when you get a funeral over with and you don’t have that heavy weight on your shoulders of the final good-bye. My fangs had come as a shock to him, but why hadn’t he asked more about it? Maybe it was too much to take in. I couldn’t blame him. I mean, he thought he’d buried me, and there I was, drinking cocoa in his kitchen. He probably figured I’d joined a cult.
It didn’t matter anymore. Christian had scrubbed his memory of the visit.
When we entered Wyatt’s computer room, I saw the back of Christian’s head. His arms were draped over the sides of a beanbag chair, and The Matrix was playing on the television. I frowned. Christian wasn’t the kind of guy who sat around watching TV, let alone by himself.
I plopped down in Wyatt’s leather chair and flicked a wrapper away from the keyboard.
Gem turned in a circle and then gripped the doorframe. “Well, I’m going to go downstairs and swim before it gets too late. Night, all!”
I switched on the desktop computer that Wyatt allowed the team to use. “Is Viktor repairing the van?”
“Aye. What are you doing in here?”
I typed in a few search words. “Some of those files I was looking at before this Cristo case came along have me curious.”
“The Vampire trading? Let it go, Raven.”
While Christian watched Morpheus offer Neo a choice between the blue or red pill, I tumbled down my own rabbit hole on the Internet. Now that Cristo’s case was closed, I knew we would probably have downtime until our next assignment.
First, I typed in “people obsessed with Vampires.” I read a few articles about the obsession with immortality, blood, and feeling chosen. I tried a few other search terms and scrolled through several pages until I found a comprehensive website about Vampires. The site contained a long list of categories. Vampire culture, history, clothing, folklore, social groups, photographs, facts, and media. The links with the facts had it mostly wrong. I supposed because the light hurt their eyes, people thought that Vampires couldn’t come out in the daylight. Stakes paralyzed them, so one could easily assume it killed them. I wasn’t sure where the whole myth with holy water and silver came in—probably from the church.
Thirty minutes later, I wound up on a message board. I had to create a name and password to log on, so I chose CookieMonster. Once in, I perused.
“Whoa. What a bunch of weirdos,” I murmured. There was actually a board for people who bragged about drinking from their pets. When I saw a picture of someone licking a rat, I quickly scrolled down.
These humans either claimed to be Vampires or wanted to be a creature of the night. One section looked more like the personals where people were requesting to be slaves. A post with three hundred replies grabbed my attention. The message was an alleged Vampire asking for someone who wanted to be his chosen one. I scrolled down, looking at one reply after the next from people desperate to be selected.
“Christian, remember those files I was looking at? The black marketeer who’s selling women?”
Christian held up his hand. “Bloody hell, he’s in a pod! Have you seen this? If someone told me that was the real world, I’d shove my finger down my throat and vomit the drugs.”
“It wasn’t a real pill,” I said. “He just opened his mind to the possibility.”
Christian wasn’t listening to me anymore.
I looked at the original post, in which the author had misspelled discreet, and jotted down the poster’s name on a piece of paper. It was probably a coincidence; half the Internet couldn’t spell. I printed out the page and folded it in half, deciding to include it in the file. Before closing the browser window, I left a message of my own. Most of them were long and looked like a résumé, while others were desperate pleas to be chosen. What were these guys looking for?
Dear Vampire, I’m a young woman with no family, no pets, no friends, and no future. I want someone to show me what’s possible.
That sounded desperate enough. I hit Send and shut down. I’d really come in here to talk to Christian and find out if my father had said anything else, but he was so engrossed in the movie that I decided to leave.
“Raven?”
I glared at the back of his head. “Yes?”
“Do you ever wonder if there’s any truth to this?” He turned around, his arms hugging the back of the beanbag. “What if we’re all in a dream and none of this is real?”
“Then I guess it doesn’t matter whether I cook dinner or not. See you later.”
Keystone was enormous with its winding interior halls, courtyard, grand staircases, and a million rooms. Many of the halls looked the same, and I got easily lost when not paying attention. I opened the door to a balcony and stepped outside.