Bad Blood: A VamPR Nightmare (Pisces Paranormal PR Agency Book 1) Read online

  BAD BLOOD: A VAMPR NIGHTMARE

  PISCES PARANORMAL PR AGENCY: BOOK 1

  BEE MURRAY

  NIOBE MARSH

  EMERALD FERN PRESS

  Copyright © 2021 by Bee Murray & Niobe Marsh

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  CONTENTS

  Before We Begin…

  1. Vinnie

  2. Tuesday

  3. Tuesday

  4. Vinnie

  5. Vinnie

  6. Tuesday

  7. Vinnie

  8. Tuesday

  9. Vinnie

  10. Vinnie

  11. Tuesday

  12. Tuesday

  13. Vinnie

  14. Vinnie

  15. Tuesday

  16. Vinnie

  17. Tuesday

  18. Tuesday

  19. Vinnie

  20. Vinnie

  21. Tuesday

  22. Vinnie

  23. Vinnie

  24. Tuesday

  25. Tuesday

  Epilogue

  Double Stakes: A VamPR Gamble

  Author’s Note

  About Bee Murray

  About Niobe Marsh

  BEFORE WE BEGIN…

  Welcome to the dark, twisty, (kinda sweary) world of our new urban fantasy/paranormal suspense series: Pisces Paranormal PR Agency. Surprised we wrote a suspense series? Join the club. Turns out, when two dark and twisty authors decide to write a rom-com that starts with vampires and mass murder and ends up in chaos you get... this. Sooo… oops?

  If dark humor, blood and vampire violence gets you excited… you might need to talk to a professional… but you’re also our kind of people.

  This story is not a love story, but rather an evolution.

  It gets complicated, as all evolutions do.

  Broken pieces, unavoidable tragedy, explosive chemistry, scathing snark, and fiery tempers.

  Violence. Blood. Death. Destruction. History. It’s all part of the gig.

  Know this: This evolution is too big to fit in just one book. But… stick with us. Pisces Paranormal PR Agency has a lot to say. This is the story of Tuesday Matson, and Tuesday? Yeah. She’s worth the pain. We have to do this right and you’re gonna wanna be there. We promise.

  * * *

  Allons-y,

  Bee & Niobe

  1

  VINNIE

  Test results could be wrong.

  False positives were a thing. I’d heard about it on the news as early as two weeks ago. A politician who almost lost her entire career because of a false positive. She’d end up with a nice lawsuit and a chunk of change… That’s what usually happened, anyway. A nice pay off for the inconvenience. But only the ones who could afford to sue. The rest?

  Well… the rest had to deal with the consequences of being a vampire in a town that wasn’t quite ready for that kind of diversity.

  I squinted at the paper in my hands, convinced if I stared at it long enough maybe the words would change.

  I’d done it a hundred times.

  They never changed.

  A familiar feeling of desperation coursed through me. The worst part of hating reality is when you know, without any doubt, that the thing you fear is real.

  I already knew the truth. I had known it for a long, long time. The results weren’t wrong.

  And nothing was going to change that fact.

  If I looked at the damned letter any longer, I was going to go insane. With a growl, I crumpled up the letter and threw it across the room to join the others in the growing pile next to the door.

  Each torn, balled up piece of paper in that pile had come in the same baby blue envelope marked URGENT.

  They’re all from the same place: The Seattle Infectious Disease Clinic: Vampiric Infections Division, Exposure Outreach.

  I don’t need to open the familiar blue envelope and read the letter that came today because it’s the same as the letter I received yesterday. The same as the day before, and the day before that.

  Sure, I’d read the first one; I just refused to believe that this was actually happening. Things like this don’t happen to people like me. It’s one benefit of being rich and famous. People believe what you tell them. To the world, I’m an eccentric pop star who lives his best life after sunset. Nothing more. Nothing less. I’m not even an anomaly.

  But with the truth? That’s where my options were limited, and I felt more than a little trapped. I could call my lawyers and set them on it—it would be easy enough to threaten the medical assholes that had dared to put this in writing.

  Maybe they would back off, retract their findings. I could call my manager and pay off the testing staff. If threats didn’t work, money usually would. But I couldn’t bring myself to hit the speed dial.

  Plus, if I did anything like that, they might go public with the results.

  That’s what all the letters were about. I had to confirm their findings and acknowledge that I understood my responsibilities as an infected party—no fucking way. They’d keep sending letters until someone reported my death or I offered the truth.

  In order to make this go away, I would have to address the problem head on. Historically, not my strong suit. I would have to tell them what the letters said and risk leaking a scandal to the press. In order to do that, I would have to expand my circle of trust to include more of my staff, to tell them the truth. That doesn’t work for me. The truth doesn’t set me free—it crushes my career and might even put my life in danger.

  I dropped my phone onto the cushion beside me, ran my hands through my hair, and sank deeper into the leather sofa. A small sliver of sunlight peeked out from behind the cloud and shone merrily onto my house and into my covered porch. It was just a small sliver of sunlight determined to brighten up an otherwise dreary Seattle day when it landed on my leg. I stared at it and willed myself to enjoy the small gift of warmth, but the smoke had already started. Little whiffs rose from my $900 jeans as the heat of that small sliver of sunlight baked through the denim and roasted my skin.

  I watched it a little longer, morbidly curious if what I thought would happen would actually happen.

  A small lick of reddish-orange flame showed up just a moment later. My leg was on fire. I watched as the small orange flare became a flame that shot across my thigh, destroying my jeans entirely before it clicked in my brain… My fucking leg is on fire.

  With a roar, I reached for the pitcher of tequila sunrise drink mix next to me and dumped it on my leg, extinguishing the experiment with tequila and lime. The only sunrise that won’t kill me.

  Considering how I got into this situation in the first place, if I’d been in a better mood, I would have appreciated the irony of it all. I dropped the pitcher onto the floor and sighed again as I pressed the button on the remote that closed the blackout drapes.

  Not only did I have a burned hole in my jeans and an angry red welt on my leg, but now everything was sticky, and reeked of tequila. Great. Just… great.

  Twin flames of rage and intense hunger rose in my core. The emotions were confusing, and I usually ignored them. Deep emotions weren’t my strong suit. Not anymore. Not after that night.

  Back then, I’d known with every fiber of my being that I wasn’t supposed to be there. My buddies and I were supposed to play the set and go home.

  That
had been the agreement. But when the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen appeared by my side at the bar and offered me a drink, I figured it wouldn’t hurt.

  Before I knew it, I was drunk. Suddenly, nothing else had mattered. Not even the woman waiting at home, or my buddies in the band.

  That night, I was consumed with feelings that wrecked me and lust that blinded me.

  A vision in crimson. She had made me crave her with an intensity I had never felt before, and I had been weak. I didn’t tell her to stop. Not when I saw her fangs, not when she caressed my neck with such exquisite sweetness, not even when she bit me and drank deeply of the blood that pounded through my veins.

  No.

  I came alive for her, caught in a web of pretty promises and adrenaline.

  Hindsight is a bitch.

  How was I supposed to know that one moment would throw my entire life as I knew it away?

  When she offered me her own wrist, the deep ruby droplets of her blood glistening against her skin, I didn’t even fucking hesitate. I drank, knowing it would change everything. I was a selfish prick who wanted to be king of the world.

  They say, be careful what you wish for.

  I fed from her and relished the taste of the infection electrifying my skin.

  She held my head to her wrist and crooned such sweet promises in my ear.

  It would be us against the world, she promised. Everything would be ok.

  Except that it wasn’t. The minute I had drunk my fill, I passed out.

  It was the feel of early morning sunshine burning my cheek that woke me up the next morning. She’d taken me to a hotel room, complete with blackout curtains, and abandoned me there.

  I waited for her.

  But she never returned. Maybe that was her plan. Unleash a monster without a care in the world and then leave me to my own devices.

  Either way, it didn’t matter. I didn’t die. I survived. I built a fucking empire. The selfish prick won and maybe it’s time to pay the proverbial piper.

  After all, I’d wanted this, right? It was my own damn fault. I became a monster.

  I have the immortality she promised; but at what cost?

  My head snapped toward the locked door as I heard quick footsteps on the highly polished hardwood floor in the corridor.

  Bad timing.

  A small fist hammered on the thick wooden door.

  “Mr. Quake, are you in there?”

  Georgia. She knew damn well I was in there. I’d been in this room for the last two weeks. She and Patricia made sure that my fridge was stocked with blood bags and that my laundry was done. I needed little else.

  High maintenance popstar, low maintenance vampire.

  Get you a guy who can do both.

  I looked down at my tequila-stained jeans and swallowed a growl of frustration. My closest staff, the ones in my circle of trust, were there because they only interrupted whatever the hell I was doing on the absolute rarest of occasions. They had keys to every room. I didn’t even know why Georgia was knocking. This better be good.

  I stalked to the door and leaned against it. “It’s not a good time,” I said loudly enough for her to hear.

  “I have some mail for you,” Georgia said.

  “Fan mail? Leave it in my studio.”

  Ugh. Fan mail. How many pairs of lacy underwear would there be in this shipment…

  “It’s not fan mail.”

  “Then what?”

  “Mr. Quake, may I come in? I need to speak to you.”

  I rubbed a hand over my face in frustration and unlocked the deadbolts and walked away from the door. Once my closest staff had learned about my… condition, I took precautions. It was in part because I didn’t want to make them nervous. A vampire looming over them in a darkened doorway was enough to make anyone nervous, and rightly so. The monster I could have been loomed just behind the facade of who I used to be. Just under the surface. It was hard to keep him caged, and the more time went by, the harder it was…. I needed the locks for my comfort.

  Georgia walked through the door with her familiar, no-nonsense gait. Her uniform was crisp and starched, just like always. I took comfort in the predictable nature of Georgia.

  “What is it?”

  But she didn’t need to answer. I’d already seen the stack of baby blue envelopes in her hand.

  “You need to address this.” Her voice was measured and steady, as though she’d been practicing. Probably with Patricia. They were the only ones on my staff who knew my secret.

  “Address what?” I replied flatly.

  She looked down at the envelopes in her hand and sighed heavily. “You can’t just… ignore them.”

  “Why not?” I pointed to the pile of crumpled and torn paper near the door. “They’re not hurting anyone.”

  “Mr. Quake… You’re going to have to—”

  “Have to what? Admit that I’m infected? Go down to the clinic and put myself on the registry? Is that what I should do?”

  Georgia’s calm expression faltered just a little. She was nervous. Maybe even scared.

  Good. She should be.

  I might’ve been a tame vampire, but there was still a monster hiding in the shadows.

  “Maybe it will be different. It’s been a few years and people are more accepting of your—”

  “Of my kind?” I hissed.

  Georgia swallowed thickly and I could see the vein in her throat throb as her heart rate sped up. She knew she’d made a mistake now.

  I let her flounder in the silence for a moment as I walked around her in a circle. “I heard you and Patricia talking yesterday,” I said.

  “We talk all the time,” she said. “She’s ordered a new shipment of blood for you. A different abattoir that doesn’t ask as many questions.”

  “You and Patricia always take such good care of me,” I said.

  Georgia’s hands clenched into fists before she forced herself to relax and smile. “We do our best. You’re definitely a challenge.”

  I tapped my finger against my temple as though I was trying to remember something important. “What was it you were talking about,” I said. “It wasn’t blood. I’d remember that. It’s… it’s all I think about, after all.”

  I was toying with her. I didn’t need to. But anger welled up inside me and I couldn’t escape its clutches.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered. “Like I said—”

  I snapped my fingers, and she jumped. “Now I remember,” I said brightly. “You were talking about the fang haters… Patricia knows some, doesn’t she? She sounded pretty torn up about it. Like she couldn’t talk about her life with them. Is this hard for you, Georgia? Working for me?”

  “I—”

  “You wouldn’t sell me out to the hunters, would you?”

  My words were soft and dangerous, and I knew Georgia was afraid. I could smell it.

  “Never,” she blurted out. “Patricia was just — She’s worried about you, too.”

  “So, you both want me to sign on to the vamp registry. Out myself to the world… And for what? So you don’t have to sneak around and pretend you’re still working for an exciting eccentric pop star instead of a fanghead who can’t come to terms with his own reality?”

  “Mr. Quake — I said nothing of the —”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” I murmured. “I’m disappointed in you, Georgia. You’ve been invaluable…”

  Her job had been to clean up my messes. There was no way she could have known what state of mind I was in. There was no way she would know what I’d do to protect myself.

  That’s what I was doing. I was protecting myself. Or, rather, my monster was protecting me.

  He reared up and took hold of me as I wrapped my arms around Georgia and held her tight against my chest so that I could bury my fangs into that delicious, pulsing vein in the side of her neck. Her thin scream of fear and pain fell on deaf ears. All I could hear was the rushing of her blood and th
e pounding pace of her heart as her blood flowed over my tongue.

  Giving in to my monster gave me peace.

  It felt…. right.

  Her blood was sweet and light and perfect. The more I drank, the happier I felt.

  When I felt her life-force leave her as she slumped in my arms? My only regret was that my moment of happiness and this quintessentially primal experience was over.

  My monster was insatiable. Once loose, he’s hard to corral back into control. The all-consuming hunger burrowed deep into my psyche, blocking out all the work I had done for years to keep it at bay.

  Georgia was delicious.

  But she wasn’t enough.

  It’s like, if we instructed a human to live on only oatmeal and multivitamins. You get your nutrients and you satiate your body, but it doesn’t quell your hunger. Then, one day, you give that person a cake. A delicious, glorious chocolate cake. You tell them they can have one bite and then they have to go back to oatmeal.

  Georgia was my cake. And I wasn’t ready to stop with just one bite.

  The monster was loose again.

  All the intense work I had done over the last five years to keep him at bay — gone in a literal heartbeat. That progress vanished the instant her blood touched my tongue. My human brain left me and the primal, monstrous part of me picked up the slack.