Pretty When She Kills (Pretty When She Dies #2)(38)

Despite Austin being a hotbed for pagans, Wiccans, and other alternative religions, there were no actual magical witches in the city. Jeff had been on the lookout for years. He could really use one on his team, but the supernatural world was very good at hiding itself. There was always the possibility of other supernatural creatures in Austin riding under the radar.

It was Benchley who broke the uneasy silence that followed Cian, Amaliya, and Samantha’s rundown of all the recent developments.

“How does this even make sense? She’s supposed to be the oddity. The freak!” He pointed at Amaliya with an accusing finger.

“Gee, thanks,” Amaliya grumbled.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Benchley combed his hands through his already-messy hair. “I mean, how can there be two of them? Two necromancer vampires? What the f*ck is going on? Why are all the rules changing?”

“Rules are made to be broken,” Eduardo said with the flash of a smile. “So now there are two of them. Who cares?” He gave a dismissive shrug of his impressive shoulders.

“But there was one necromancer vampire for how long? Thousands of years and then suddenly, we have two?” Benchley stared at Amaliya with a mixture of awe and fear. This was only his second time meeting her and his nerves were showing.

Jeff wished Benchley hadn’t drunk most of the pot of coffee on his own. The guy was jittery as hell.

“I blame The Summoner,” Sam declared. “It’s his fault! He did something to Amaliya and this girl, Bianca.”

“The question is why and how?” Alexia’s voice, like her appearance, was very boyish.

Amaliya shrugged and hooked her legs over the armrest of her chair. She was wearing very sexy leopard print high heels with red soles. “He’s dead. Not like we can ask him.”

“Can’t say I’m not glad to see that bastard dead.” Benchley tapped his fingers on the table. “But he did change things. Somehow.”

Jeff nodded as he flipped through one of the books his father had kept on The Summoner. “Cian, there is no other record of this happening. Are you sure you haven’t heard of him making necromantic vampires before?”

“Positive. I would have heard about it. Hell, he would have boasted about it.” Cian unfolded his arms and sighed. “This is very unexpected.”

“I got the impression he was surprised by my powers.” Amaliya tugged on the ends of her long hair, studying them for split ends. “But then again, he never said he was surprised that I was a necromancer like him. Maybe he was surprised that my powers manifested the way they did. He could call the dead without shedding blood like I have to.”

The frown on her face deepening, Samantha asked, “But why did he leave Bianca behind?”

“She didn’t rise when expected.” Cian finally joined them. He snagged a chair and dragged it to the end of the table, sitting near Jeff. “He may have thought that she wasn’t going to change. Sometimes the blood transfer doesn’t work. The person never transforms, or only partially transforms.”

“Which is where ghouls come from, right?” Benchley asked.

“Ghouls are gross,” Alexia grumbled.

“Yes, that’s where ghouls come from.” Cian leaned forward to look at the book Jeff was flipping through. “Ghouls are the bastard children of vampires.”

“What’s this ghoul thing?” Amaliya asked, arching her eyebrows.

Benchley raised his hand as though he were in school, realized what he was doing, then awkwardly put it down. “Uh, they’re really nasty looking. Kinda like zombies meet the Gollum. They eat dead bodies.”

“And sometimes live bodies,” Alexia interjected.

“We saw one once. In a graveyard in Fredericksburg,” Benchley continued. “Really nasty.”

“They have a taste for vampire blood. I had to fight a pack once. They nearly took me down.” Cian frowned and stopped Jeff from flipping pages.

Jeff looked at him curiously, but Cian had bent his head to read something.

“So, maybe he thought she was a ghoul?” Benchley looked dubious. “So he leaves her behind and goes after Amaliya because he thinks she’s the experiment that worked?”

Samantha eyeballed Amaliya thoughtfully.

Amaliya returned the look with her eyebrows raised. “What?”

“Maybe he’s been trying to do this kinda thing for a long time but it didn’t work until you because of your grandmother,” Samantha said breathlessly.

“Huh?” Amaliya glanced toward Jeff curiously. “Is she making sense?”

“I think she might be,” Alexia said, sounding impressed. “Isn’t she, Jeff?”

Samantha looked pleased with herself.

Jeff suddenly felt a lot more alert. Cian was studying a news article on Bianca Leduc that Jeff had added to the back of the book when her body had been discovered during the Satanic Murders coverage. Jeff scooted his chair closer to Cian and craned his head to read the article.

“Well? Is she onto something?” Benchley asked, sounding cross.

“They’re looking at something. Calm down.” Eduardo slid to his feet and prowled around the table to the coffee and muffins set up nearby.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Samantha excitedly jumped to her feet and scurried around the table. She nearly crawled onto Jeff’s lap trying to see what they were looking at.