Blood of the Gods (The Vampire from Hell Part 5) Read Free Page B

knew he was a sensitive soul despite his gruff exterior.  He was a wolf god, a werewolf, a hellhound.  And to his enemies, he was a fearsome sight.  To his friends?  He was big old teddy bear, and I loved him like an older brother or father.
    I did not react to his outbursts.  I let him do as he pleased.  I had learned from my time as a vampire that one knows when to pick one’s battles.  Fighting Blick wasn’t an idea I would ever execute.  He was now my friend too.  He needed us like we needed him.  And after reading Rayea’s journals, I knew how they both cared for each other.  Had I not read it, I still would have known.  I saw it every time I looked up into Blick’s face, his chiseled features, his handsome dark looks.  Of course, his violent outbursts of anger meant one thing; he would move heaven and earth to find Rayea.  Blick had been worried about my maker ever since she had walked into Max’s bar, the Golden Skull that night trying to save J , Blick’s boss, good friend, and son of G .
    Blick knew something wasn’t right.  He saw the destruction.  He saw the burned ashes, the blood, the clumps of Rayea’s black hair, but no body, no presence of her at all.
    When she had not returned, he was beside himself.  However, he knew she was in trouble.  Demetri had demanded he stay with us.  Had he not, I would have.  I tried to hide my emotions into a stoic demeanor of a proper vampire.  I tried to feel nothing about the fact that she was gone and that we were still all grieving for her.  I tried to act like I did not care, but I could not do it.  I thought about Rayea constantly.  I comforted Blick when I could and I ignored his fits of anger.  It was pointless to react to them.  When he broke something in our two-story apartment, I simply went out and got a new item.  Had he agreed to get his own laptop, he would not keep smashing the extra ones I had bought.  That did not happen, so I went out to replace it.  To date, I was on my 15 th laptop and I suspected until we found Rayea, the number would continue to grow.
    “I’ll see ya tonight, Blick.  I’m going to take Demetri’s bike, okay?”  I pulled the book I had been reading from under my backpack, pushed it into his hands, snagged my motorcycle helmet, and raced to the door.
    “What is this?”
    “She would want the world to know.  And mark my words, we will find her!”
    As I closed the door, I saw the stunned expression on his face.  I had given him a copy of Rayea’s online journals.  The Vampire from Hell was alive and well, at least in print.
     

Chapter 4
    Phone Conversation (Grace and Demetri)
     
    ***
    “ Your words are my food, your breath my wine. You are everything to me. ” ~ Sarah Bernhardt
    ***
     
    When I saw the call coming in on the bike’s dashboard, I knew whom the call was from.  I clicked my Bluetooth device wired in my helmet.
    “How is he?”
    “Don’t you mean how am I?” I asked, teasing Demetri a little bit.  I knew he meant Blick.
    “How much has he destroyed this morning and yes, how are you, sweetheart?”
    Demetri rarely called me by my name anymore, but I loved his nicknames for me.  Often I called him by his formal name, instead of Death, the nickname he had earned as the Angel of Death, a position he had left once the Council had told him they would be processing Rayea’s journey over to the other side and that his services were no longer needed.
    “He’s hanging in there.  But we need a new calendar and some other piece of furniture I think.”
    “That’s all?”
    I laughed into the speaker.  Silence surfaced on the line.
    “You okay?”
    “I didn’t mean to do it, on this day of all days, but I gave him a book today.”
    “Okay, what’s wrong with that?  I don’t see Blick as a reader.  Is he?”
    “I don’t know,” I answered feeling the emotion I was attempting to hold back crack into my voice.
    “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?  What book?”
    “Lynn