Real Vampires Don't Wear Size Six(14)

I signaled my night clerk and headed out after them. Josh helped Penny into his SUV, acting like a gentleman. I was glad to see him treating her with respect. But I wasn't so happy as I probed Penny's mind. She'd forgotten to block her thoughts and they were all about trying to control her fangs as he shut her inside the dark car and strolled around to get in. Penny had a bad case of the "I want to taste a mortal" cravings.
I jumped into my convertible I'd parked at the curb and followed them at a discreet distance. Yes, this felt weird, but I wasn't about to let Penny dine on this guy. He pulled into a space at a mall that had a multiscreen cinema and parked. Soon they were headed for the theater. I paid for my ticket and tried not to roll my eyes when I saw we were actually going to see the latest vampire flick. I wondered whose idea that had been.
Josh bought popcorn and drinks. Penny forgot and sipped hers, coughing until Josh pounded her on the back. Too bad. She'd been pretty cool up to that point. After that she just pretended to drink, shaking her head when he offered her popcorn, though I saw her nose twitch and her eyes water. I could sympathize. It smelled delicious. I had to give her props for playing mortal like a pro as I trailed them into the theater, one of dozens of women and a few men. Josh was really taking one for the team with this show. Obviously it was a chick flick.
I settled two rows behind them, ready to critique the vamp action on the screen and in front of me. No fangs on the vamps? Like I'd gnaw a vein open. But the fight scenes were great. Loved the werewolves. I was so engrossed, I almost missed Josh making a move on Penny. Hmm. His arm was around her and she leaned into him. Sweet.
Then I got caught up in the movie again. A love story. I'm a sucker for romance. Especially since my own love life is a twisted tale of-Wait a minute, where had they gone? Penny and Josh had managed to slip out before the movie was over. And I wasn't going to get to see which guy this girl picked? Damn it!
I jumped up and stepped unapologetically on numerous feet to get out of there. I ran across the lobby to the parking lot and saw that Josh's car was missing. How long had I been watching the screen and not my fledgling? I looked around and realized no one was nearby so I shifted into my bird form, flying up so I could look for that black SUV. Oh, great. There are only thousands of black SUVs in Austin. I tried to figure out the logical places Penny might go with Josh.
His place? He'd said he had roommates. Definitely not my place, though I'd given her a key and the alarm code for the building. So her old place? Totally a possibility. I landed next to my car and quickly shifted back, then hit speed dial for Damian.
"Hello, Gloriana, how goes the mentoring?"
"Oh, fine, fine." No way was I admitting failure to the head of the council. "You are paying me a stipend for this, aren't you? This girl's really racking up expenses. Synthetics, utilities, not to mention part of the rent. I was about to bring in another roommate when you dumped her on me. A paying roomie." I heard Damian say something about submitting receipts. "Sure, whatever. You know, I was following her over to her old place to pick up the rest of her stuff and lost her in traffic. Could you give me that address?"
"Certainly. And as to a stipend . . . Well, I suppose that could be arranged. Half your rent, anyway." Damian rattled some papers. "Here's her address." He read it to me. "The council is impressed that you were willing to do this. But there are still concerns. There have been reports of more demons scented in the area. Do you know anything about that, Gloriana?"
"Demons? You know how I hate those things. If I do run into them, I'll tell them to fly straight back down to hell where they belong. You know that, don't you, Damian?" I got into the car and started the engine, thinking about the address and trying to figure out where it was. I knew it was near the university, but that was a big area. Fortunately, Austin is laid out logically with numbered streets.
"Yes, Gloriana. Just be careful. Your last run-in with a demon should have convinced you how serious a problem they can be. By the way, Florence and Richard should be back soon from their honeymoon." Damian seemed inclined to chat and I didn't have time.
"I know. Can't wait to hear all the details. Listen, got to go. Penny's waiting. Talk to you later." I hung up and headed out. If Penny hadn't taken Josh back to her place, I had no idea where to look. And if she had, what was I going to do? Burst in on them? She already thought I was overprotective and interfering. But she had no idea what a dangerous situation she was in. Talk was cheap. Until she experienced it, she probably didn't believe me about bloodlust. It wasn't easy to control even in an ancient vampire. For a new one? Impossible.
I got onto a freeway and gunned my turbocharged motor. And what else was up here? My fledgling couldn't even sit through a whole movie on a first date? I'd be damned if I'd mentor a slut. Okay, I realized that was a little bit of the pot calling the kettle. But, hey, rational thinking had been left back at the mall parking lot.
Maybe Penny was discovering the famous vampire libido along with the bloodlust. I hated to rain on that parade, but she just wasn't ready for it. Not sex with a mortal anyway. If I could hook her up with a paranormal, she could have at it. I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw the exit for Penny's street and crossed two lanes of traffic to take it. In minutes I'd found her address and followed my sense of smell to the right apartment in the vintage building. I should have known Penny would be on the ground floor. That height aversion.
She'd put on music and I heard her laughter behind the door. I knocked and she stopped laughing. I waited, tapping my foot in time to the tune, a top-forty hit. I knocked again, hard enough to rattle the doorframe. The music clicked off.
"Open up, Penny, or I'll knock it down." The door jerked open and Penny stood there, her fangs gleaming in the light from a dozen candles.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Penny growled.
"Thought you'd given me the slip? As if." I shoved past her to see Josh sitting on the couch, the telltale look on his face that meant she'd whammied him. Yep, my little fledgling had put the guy into a trance. I didn't see fang marks yet. I turned and reached behind her to slam the door shut.
"First, you tell me. Why the whammy, Penny? What's Josh going to do while you have him under your little spell?" I stared hard at her.
"What do you think? That I'm so desperate I've got to put a guy in a trance before he'll have sex with me?" She flounced over to the couch and sat close to him, even put her hand on his thigh. "I'll have you know he was all over me before I did this to him."
"Yeah, I'm sure he got the message that you were good to go when you agreed to leave the movie before it was over." I sat across from her in a sagging leather chair. A fat orange cat stared at me from under a table across the room. I ignored it.
"I'd seen it before. Jenny dragged me to it the first week it was out. I wasn't into vampires then and this time I could see how fake it was." She rubbed Josh's leg. "Isn't he cute? He offered to take me to the vamp movie because he'd heard girls like it. You did such a great job of making me look good, he couldn't keep his hands off me."
"You do look good." I shook my head. "But then you had to screw things up, didn't you?"
Penny frowned. "What do you mean? You're the one who burst in here, checking up on me."
"Come on. Admit it. Josh is sitting there looking zoned out for only one reason." I leaned forward and gave Penny a hard look. "Despite my warning, you were about to test drive your fangs on this mortal, weren't you? You think I can't see them?"
Penny swallowed and looked everywhere but at me. Finally she turned, chin up. "Yeah, so what? I can control myself. I'm not your ordinary fledgling, Glory. I can do this. Watch me." She put her hand on his jugular.
"Stop right there." I gripped her wrist. "This isn't some intellectual exercise, damn it. This is bloodlust. Your eyes are dilated. Your fangs are down and I can see you're about to lose it."
"So?" Penny snarled. "Feel him. He's so incredibly warm and that's his heart pounding under my hand. Then there's the smell." She inhaled and a look of near ecstasy came over her face. "God, but he's, he's driving me crazy. He's alive!"
I kept my grip on her, though she was trying to pull away. "Forget it, Penny. You can't do it. Let him go. Plant the idea in his mind that he liked you, but he can't call you again because you dumped him. You just can't forgive him for leaving you on that hilltop. It's the right thing to do."
"No. I want to see him again. He-he makes me feel alive." She leaned against him, gasping when he fell over to land on the couch. "Geez, this is ridiculous." She grabbed him and straightened him back to a sitting position.
"That's because he's basically unconscious with his eyes open." I sat on his other side to keep him propped up. "Give it up, Penny. Don't you think it's a little creepy to accept a date with a guy and then take advantage of him by drinking his blood?"
"Maybe." Penny showed me her fangs. "But he left me on that hilltop, you know. No excuse is good enough for that. Especially considering what happened there. So maybe he owes me this. I can hear the blood going through his veins, his heart pumping. It's calling to me. I . . . I want it. Need it. Bloodlust? What the hell? It's fantastic." She kept brushing her thumb over his jugular, then leaned in and inhaled again before she shuddered, forcing herself to sit back.