Gypsy Freak (All The Pretty Monsters #2)(18)

She gives a tight nod, still sipping her tea, and when he starts up the stairs, she turns toward me.

“You’re such a dick,” she says, her eyes on my chin.

“You can see,” I say accusingly when I hear the upstairs door shut.

“No. I can’t. But I can feel you when you’re sitting that close. It feels like electrical static humming all over me.”

I let myself appear, and her eyes lift to meet mine.

“I don’t know if I can trust you,” I say on a weary breath. “Gypsy women tend to be confusing and manipulative.”

“Gypsy women?” she asks on an incredulous breath like I’ve said something ironic or insane.

Not sure which.

My phone buzzes in my jacket pocket, and she pulls it out for me, rolling her eyes as she hands it to me, putting our disagreement on pause.

I glance down at the image sent from Vance. Then I get a little queasy.

“What’s that?” she asks, invading my privacy a little when she leans over and looks at the picture without so much as even asking.

And she says I have no boundaries. Little rude to be so hypocritical.

“That would be the coffin Arion was trapped in. It was made with the blood, sweat, silver, and tears of a Van Helsing, and no ordinary monster could possibly have broken free. However, Arion did, because he had a little help.”

I don’t mention her part in it, because I’m still not sure what part she really played, and at current, neither does she.

“Arion’s the big bad vampire,” she states like she’s working a quiz.

The seals were burned through, but it’s the images of the inside of the coffin that are making me queasy. Claws have scored every surface on the inside.

“He awoke early,” I say under my breath, bile rising to my throat.

“What?”

Before I can answer, a series of very haunting howls erupt in the air, and right behind them, one monstrous, feral, enraged howl rattles the ground and the dishes.

“Shit,” I say quickly as I dart to the back door.

Violet stumbles over her toga when she follows, and I catch her before she falls off the back stoop. Damn gypsy and her shitty threading.

The howls ignite again, and I glance up to see the almost full moon. It’s a bad night to be a vampire. Emit’s almost at his strongest and most deranged. Tomorrow night he’ll be all beast.

“What’s going on?” she asks as shutters drop rapidly on all the homes around.

Staring out at the road, hearing the thunder of wolves as they pound the pavement somewhere ahead of us, I heave out a breath.

“Emit just realized Arion has risen,” I tell her just as I start toward my keyed car.

She runs along behind me, cursing the snow that starts falling anew. Turning, I lift her, and she throws her arms around my neck, as I move quickly across the surface of the snow, not giving it time to sink under our combined weight.

“I’m glad you feel like going,” I chirp as I drop her to the ground and open the passenger side door for her.

The howls grow louder and twice as vicious.

“I’m not sure why in the hell I’m following you right now instead of hiding here and running when I can.”

I shut her up inside my car and jog over to the driver’s side.

Cranking the vehicle, I back us out of the driveway, shaking my head. “Possibly some guilt is driving you, tricky gypsy,” I suggest.

“What guilt?”

“Never mind,” I say instead of explaining, as I drive. “The point is, Emit is a lot stronger this close to the full moon.”

“Okay…that’s a bad thing right now?” she asks, hissing out a breath when I take a sharp, slick curve and fishtail a little.

“Vance lost his will to even fight these battles. He does so out of obligation now. However, Arion happily kicked his ass too damn easily, it seems. If Emit and Arion tangle this close to the full moon, a war could reignite.”

“I’m confused,” she groans.

“The monsters are kept in line by the monster slayer, Violet. If they feel the Van Helsings aren’t strong enough to keep them in their place—”

“They’ll rebel,” she guesses.

“They’ll pillage, feast, plunder, and far, far worse if the order falls. It’s a fragile, precarious balance Vance is responsible for as Head of the Van Helsing family.”

She sighs and massages her temples.

“I used to think there was only one Van Helsing—by myth. Maybe someone should point out there’s an entire family,” she mutters under her breath.

“We take no role in fiction. It’s expressly forbidden.”

“Glad you guys have your priorities in line,” she mutters as she blows a piece of her hair away from her face.

The showdown has already started when we arrive at Arion’s isolated home. Wolves are attacking vampires at the entrance, and I text Vance. Since, you know, he should come start kicking asses and putting people in line.

Violet’s breath erupts from her lungs as she stares out at the madness, inching closer to me in my car until she’s practically in my lap. Not that I’m complaining.

“I take it back. I want to go home,” she says quickly, tugging at my shirt as she looks around.

“I’m afraid I need you to keep Arion from killing anyone tonight,” I tell her as I push the door open and lift her out with me.