Kiss of the Vampire(31)

Tobias stopped the car at a traffic light. “Rinda has…” He shook his head. “Had. She had six undergrad degrees. This program in astronomical sciences would have been her third master’s degree.” Sadness colored his voice. The light turned green and he drove through the intersection.

“She loved to learn,” Nix whispered again, mostly to herself. She hadn’t really allowed herself to think of her friend as a friend, only as a victim. She’d been too focused on fighting her resurging feelings for Tobias to let herself feel her own loss. As tears welled, she bit the inside of her cheek and stared blindly out the window, trying to get control. She didn’t want to break down now. Not on the job. Not in front of Dante and especially not in front of Tobias.

The SUV turned onto a narrower side street and slowed. Then it stopped in front of a ranch-style brick house, and Tobias shoved the gear lever into park. “We’re here.”

Nix climbed out of the backseat and stared at the house as she shut the door. It was a nice, normal-looking house with a nice, normal-looking minivan parked in the driveway. It looked the same as all the other nice, normal-looking houses on the street.

Perfect for the nice, normal human family that no doubt lived inside. Part of her wondered what that was like. Being normal. She’d never known that, simply because of the demon twisted in her DNA. She’d given up on the idea a long time ago, but every once in a while she felt a twinge of envy for everyday people who only had to worry about being embarrassed by their relatives at the family reunion  , not about Uncle Harry trying to eat them for dinner.

For the first two years of her life, most of which she had no memory of, Nix had lived a somewhat normal life. She’d had a loving father who had spoiled her rotten even while his addiction to her mother was draining his life away. And once he was gone, her mother, who’d at best been indifferent to the child she’d birthed, had walked away, leaving her little girl with a woman who’d resented her, even hated her, though duty had dictated she care for her granddaughter.

And she’d never let Nix forget she was demon-spawn. Never let her be more than her genetics. After a while, Nix had decided to prove her grandmother right and started living down to the old woman’s expectations. As a young teenager she ran with the wrong crowd, learning how to pick pockets, escalating to breaking and entering. By her fourteenth birthday her demon tendencies had begun to manifest. When she was fifteen her grandmother’s health had begun to deteriorate, and, by the time Nix turned sixteen, the old lady was dead.

Nix had wanted to feel sad, but really all she’d felt was relief. No more haranguing, no more being told she was worthless. No more feeling like she didn’t deserve to live.

The day of her grandmother’s funeral, Nix took what little belongings she could carry with her and went into the foster care system. Being around people who loved their children, people who had tried to love her, had been more than she could bear. At that age she hadn’t felt lovable. After all, her mother hadn’t wanted her, her grandmother hadn’t wanted her. So she’d run. She lied about her age, took what paying jobs she could get, and stole or scrounged for whatever else she needed.

“Nix?”

She dragged herself away from her memories to see Tobias and Dante staring at her. She cleared her throat. “Yeah. Sorry. Are we ready?”

Thankfully both men kept their thoughts to themselves.

“Let’s go.” Tobias started up the walk.

When Dante raised a brow but dutifully followed, Nix fell into step beside him. “Of this team, Tobias is lead, you know that.”

“Because all the vics are vamps. Yeah, I know,” Dante said. They stopped in front of the stoop and watched Tobias knock on the door.

Nix looked around. Fuchsia bougainvilleas rode up a trellis on one side of the house while white oleanders, kept short in bush formations, squatted beneath the windows. Various potted plants sat on either side of the small porch. The clean floral scent of the flowers helped mask vampire pheromones that Nix still fought so hard to ignore.

Dante leaned sideways. “It wouldn’t hurt him to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ every now and again.”

Tobias shot a sharp glance over his shoulder.

Dante grinned. “No need to get your shorts in a twist, Tobemeister.”

Oh, boy. Nix watched as Tobias stiffened and began to turn around. “Tobemeister. Seriously?” Nix elbowed Dante.

Before Tobias could say anything, the front door opened. A middle-aged woman stood there, a polite smile on her face. “Yes?”

Tobias pulled out his ID and showed it to her. “I’m Tobias Caine of the Council of Preternaturals. These are my colleagues, Nix de la Fuente and Detective Dante MacMillan.” He slipped his ID back into his pocket. “We’d like to speak with Samantha.”