Blood Calling (The Blood Calling Series, Book 1) Read online

  “I—” I began. But she was already walking away from me. I shouted, “Why?”

  Becca turned and looked back at me, her face twisted into a grimace, her eyes glassy. I waited for words but none came. She turned away and continued power-walking away while I stood there, hurt and confused and angry.

  And then it slapped me in the face.

  One week before we started high school, Becca confided to me she’d been having, “Like, this dream…”

  In the dream, she met a brown-haired boy with totally sky-blue eyes who was the love of her life. Becca, being the artist type, even made a sketch of him using her colored pencils so I could see what he looked like.

  On the first day of high school, there he was. His name was James and he was brown-haired and blue-eyed and he was the love of Becca’s life.

  James and Becca became, like, one person almost immediately, even though he was a junior and she a freshman. They did everything together and went everywhere together, and neither of their parents had any problem with it because they were both freaky-responsible. Top of their class, lots of college-impressing extracurricular activities, no pregnancies.

  When James hit the end of his senior year and went away to college, no one even blinked when a reasonably priced engagement ring appeared.

  Things were perfect until James got in his car and started driving home for Christmas break that year.

  There was a police report but the important words were: drunk driver, opposite direction, same lane, and killed instantly.

  At the funeral, I held Becca while snot and tears and grief ran down her face so hard I forgot to cry.

  For a long time afterwards, she wouldn’t talk about what happened. Sometimes we did things and sometimes we didn’t do anything at all except sit there.

  And then one day she was ready to say what she had to say. “If you ever drink and drive, you are dead to me.”

  As I remembered all of that, I felt my lungs collapse. I fell on the grass and bawled.

  CHAPTER 4

  Kids aged seventeen-and-364-days were under a different set of rules than kids aged seventeen-and-365-days. We all know where I fell. Birthday, remember?

  It blew my mind when I found a copy of my judgment on the mail pile, including information about when and where I was supposed to report for community service.

  Specifically, 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM Monday through Saturday at one of the local homeless shelters.

  State law designated that kids couldn’t work past 9:00 PM on a school night. Every kid who ever decided to do something stupid knew that.

  But like I said—I wasn’t a kid.

  Still, the hours were unusual.

  I hopped online to find out more about the Sundown Shelter.

  It seemed the Sundown Shelter had an ominous moniker for a very specific reason. Back when I was in Girl Scouts, we used to volunteer at shelters all the time, and most of them were, in the words of my troop leader, “three hots and a cot.”

  That wasn’t how Sundown worked. Instead, it opened up every night at 8:00 PM and closed again every morning at 9:00 AM. That was according to their website, which also boasted an address and phone number, both of which I already had on my papers.

  The place was gone now.

  Still curious about where I would be spending most of my nights for the next few months, I threw Sundown Shelter into a search engine to see what I could see. Not much. A couple of places that listed the addresses of local shelters. One in particular was interesting because it allowed people to make comments, which ranged from, “Clean shelter, friendly staff. Recommend!” to “Don’t go there if you’re hungry, they don’t have food,” to “One of the volunteerz was totally hawt!”

  Awesome.

  I clicked around a bit more, looking for information and putting off calling Sundown to figure out what day I should show up.

  After something like an hour of poking around, checking email, and trying new and exciting search engines, I sighed, picked up the phone, and called the number.

  There was no answer.

  I glanced at the clock on the computer monitor. It was 6:00 PM. I knew the shelter didn’t open until eight but I figured someone had to be there. A janitor. A volunteer.

  Uh-uh. Not even voice mail, or an answering machine.

  I hung up and dialed a second time, certain I’d hit a bad digit. Then my mother walked in. I could tell by the look on her face that I did something wrong.

  I cocked an eyebrow.

  “I believe I removed your phone privileges.”

  I looked at the receiver in my hand for a moment. Then I held up my paperwork. “Community service.”

  “Oh.” My mom paused. “When do you start?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out but no one is answering.”

  Chuck appeared in the doorway behind my mother. I noticed my mom was more dressed up than usual. Her impeccable business suit had been replaced by an impeccable (and also tiny) dress I didn’t recognize. Chuck upgraded from whatever a trainer wore when he went out to whatever a trainer wore when he went out in style.

  “We about ready?” he said.

  My mother ran her tongue over her teeth—her thinking face—and looked at me. “You know what? It’s Friday night. You should just head over there tonight and introduce yourself. Maybe you can get some of your hours knocked off for good behavior.”

  I considered defying her. Calling her bluff, telling her I knew she was hoping I’d be gone when she and Chuck got back from an incredibly expensive night so they could have the house to themselves for an hour. Really, all they needed was five minutes. Tops.

  Instead, I sighed and told my mom I’d figure out the bus schedule, and I would see her later.

  Two book chapters, some Googling, one reheated Chinese take-out dinner and a bus ride later, I found myself in front of Sundown Shelter.

  Dusk arrived, casting the street into various shades of black and grey and street-light orange.

  Sundown sat in front of me, squat on the pavement, part of a series of shops and storefronts with large windows and merchandise artfully backlit in hopes you’d come back to buy it at a more normal hour. Sundown’s windows, by contrast, were dark, as though thick curtains had been pulled over them.

  I knocked on the door, though I was sure it was open, being a shelter.

  I stood for a minute, taking in my surroundings, and was just about to try the handle when the door swung open on well-oiled hinges.

  That’s how I met my very first vampire.

  CHAPTER 5

  “You must be Lucy Leary,” said the dark-skinned man standing in the doorway.

  “How—?”

  “I just got your paperwork.” He held up his left hand, shaking a copy of the papers I’d received at me. He reached out his right hand. “Washington Lincoln.”

  I shook it briefly. It was cool, with a firm-but-not-too-firm grip. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Lincoln.” I may talk like my peers most of the time but I knew that didn’t fly with a lot of the adult population.

  A smile touched his lips. “Wash is fine.”

  “Lucy.”

  “Well, Lucy,” he said, waving a hand in the general direction of behind him, “would you like a tour?”

  I nodded and walked past him into the lobby.

  There was a small desk, with a computer on top that was new back when I was in middle school. Off to the right was a large wooden trunk. Wash pointed at it.

  “Toiletries,” he said. “Everyone who comes here gets a small bag with the usual hotel stuff. Small bar of soap, shampoo, conditioner, toothbrush, toothpaste. We used to include a small razor but we had some problems with that.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “Cutting problems.”

  I cringed inwardly and changed the subject. “What’s the computer for?”

  “Every person that comes in, you need to get some kind of contact information.”

  “What if they lie about it?”
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  “Then they lie. But if the police show up looking for someone, we need to offer up whatever we have.”

  I nodded and Wash directed me into the next room.

  It looked a bit like summer camp was always portrayed in the movies. Beds were lined up against the wall on either side of the room with small curtains hanging from the ceiling which could be pulled around each bed for privacy.

  I noticed one of the walls looked strange, then remembered that outside the building it wasn’t a wall at all, but a few large sheets of glass. Inside, the glass was coated with a thick layer of black paint, blocking out all outside light.

  “Not a lot to explain here, I suppose,” said Wash. “People sleep on the beds. Lights out is technically at eleven but we just dim the lights a bit. Turning them off can lead to problems.” Wash smiled grimly, allowing me to guess what those problems might be.

  “What’s back there?” I pointed to a door at the far end of the room. Windows were on either side of it, curtains covering them from inside.

  “A few more beds,” said Wash. “We put families back there if there are more than two or three of them. Sometimes we put sick people back there to keep them separate from everyone else. Homeless people don’t always have great constitution. If a bad flu finds its way into the main room, we could end up with a lot of sick homeless people. Once that happens, the bug will roam for a really long time. In here and out there.”

  “That happen a lot?”

  “More often than I’d like.” Wash took an immediate right and walked to a door nearby. I followed him.

  “This is the laundry room,” Wash said. “Pretty straightforward, really. We provide towels and washcloths, and the showers are over there in the restrooms.” He pointed to a pair of doors with the standard symbols on them.

  Wash tilted his head at the industrial washer and dryer. “You ever work at a hotel?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Ever do laundry?”

  There were a lot of answers I could have given him. My original answer was going to be some variation of only since the divorce then I thought better of it. “Sure.”

  “Then this’ll be nothing. Towels and washcloths go in at midnight and again in the morning. All hot water, all the time. No fancy stuff that needs hand-washing here,” he said with a grin.

  “Okay,” I replied, not sure how to take what he clearly thought was a joke.

  Wash led me back to the front desk and wiggled the computer mouse. A basic database program came up and within a couple of minutes I knew where to add everyone’s information.

  As I settled in for a long night of sitting, and more sitting, followed by even more sitting, my first clients walked in the door.

  To my surprise, they were not the bearded, drunken drug addicts I’m sure the judge was hoping I would learn not to be like. Instead it was a nice older man and his wife, who, they explained, lost their jobs and were driving a U-Haul with everything they owned to Georgia to live with one of their kids. They gave me the Georgia address as their contact point and headed off with their new bathroom kits to freshen up.

  A moment later, the man walked back out the front door as Wash walked into the office and handed me a slip of paper. “I sent him to a parking garage nearby,” said Wash. “It’s not the best idea to leave a vehicle out on the streets here.”

  The paper had information about how to get to the parking garage. Wash told me to pass along parking information to anyone else who came in with a vehicle.

  The rest of the night passed slowly. Real slowly. A few more people who did look like street folk came in and I took what was obviously fake info from them. One gave me a phone number that started with 555, and the other gave me an 800 number that, when converted from numbers to letters, made a dirty word.

  And then it was 10:45 PM.

  A hand appeared on the desk where there was no hand before, and I jumped.

  Wash stood in front of me, leaning on the desk. “Let me walk you to the bus stop.”

  “How did you…” I started, as I tried to figure out how he got into the front of the building without me hearing him. I looked at the clock on the corner of my computer screen. “I still have fifteen minutes.”

  “I know,” said Wash. “But there’s a bus at eleven and then there isn’t another one until eleven-thirty, and I’m not going to let you stand outside waiting in the middle of the night.”

  I met his eyes. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” He paused for a moment. “If it makes you feel any better, this isn’t a sexist thing. I’ve had male volunteers—“

  I grinned. “Volunteers?”

  He grinned back. “Court-appointed assistants, then,” he said. “I walk them out at night as well. Just in case. Don’t worry, you’ll get your three hours’ worth when I turn in your paperwork.”

  I stood up and stretched, thinking next time I should bring a pillow of some sort to put on the wooden chair. That was going to get old quickly.

  Wash walked to the door a few steps ahead of me and held it open.

  “Do you do that for your boy helpers too?”

  “Only the pretty ones.”

  We walked out the door and into the starless night.

  CHAPTER 6

  A slight breeze had kicked up, and I shivered and wished I’d brought a jacket. Wash didn’t seem to care about the cold. We walked in silence until the end of the block.

  As we stood waiting for the light to change, Wash said, “You don’t belong here.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You don’t belong here.”

  “What do you mean by ‘here?’” I said.

  The light changed, and we moved across the street. The bus stop was in sight three blocks down.

  “I mean I looked up your court information. I always do. Judges don’t send people to me because I need assistance. They send people to me to learn a lesson. Your record is clean. Almost too clean. You don’t even have a parking ticket. I read about that party in the paper. I saw your date of birth on your court record. That wasn’t your party. You wouldn’t have been at that party if things were…” He trailed off.

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” I said.

  We crossed another street. Two blocks to go.

  “I suppose not. But when people get sent to me, it’s not really a punishment. It’s more of a scared straight kind of thing. ‘Look at what happens to people who just can’t let go of the bottle.’ Someone your age crosses my doorstep, and I know a judge wants you to show up and see puking, stinking bums with gold paint on their face from huffing.”

  “Maybe that’s what I need,” I said.

  “Nah. I watched your face when I gave you the tour. You’ve been in a homeless shelter before. Girl Scouts, I’m guessing?”

  I nodded.

  “You made a mistake. You’re eighteen. It happens. But I’m thinking that it wasn’t the kind of mistake that leads to more mistakes.”

  We crossed another street.

  “I’ve got to do my time, one way or another.”

  Wash nodded. “You’re right. I can’t help you with that. I just,” he paused. We reached the end of the block and crossed the street. The bus stop was on the corner.

  There was a large bank across the street, with a large flashing sign. Alternately, it displayed advice. Refinance your home! Ask us how! The temperature: 65 degrees. The time: 10:59 PM.

  Wash touched my shoulder and met my eyes. “I know there are times when we all feel alone. I’ve felt that way before and I think you feel that way now. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  It would have been creepy if he hadn’t been so sincere. I wanted to say something, either something sarcastic like, “I’m guessing only the prettiest boys get this speech,” or maybe something to get him to back off like, “No thanks, buddy. I don’t need your friendship.”

  But instead, I looked at him and knew he meant it, and that struck me dumb.

  Wash let
the silence sit for a minute as the clock changed to 11:00 PM and then to 11:01 PM. We both heard the bus down the street and turned to watch it rolling towards us like a beacon in the night.

  The bus squealed to a stop, and I moved to step through the open door and into my not-so-private chariot when Wash said, “If you need to talk…”

  He said it so quietly I almost didn’t hear, and then the door closed. I paid my fare and the bus pulled away.

  CHAPTER 7

  I wasn’t looking forward to going back to Sundown on Saturday night, afraid Wash and I would spend the night not looking at each other, as though we had exchanged an awkward kiss instead of awkward words.

  But when I went in the door a few minutes before eight, Wash greeted me as pleasantly as he had the night before and asked me to help make up a few cots.

  Within half an hour, we were done and Wash headed off to do laundry while I manned the computer.

  To say it was a quiet night would be like saying Hitler was a little unfriendly. Only two men showed up, both of whom were there the night before. I pulled up their fake files and noted they had been at Sundown before and gave them both kits. They showered and went to bed.

  At 10:45 PM, Wash showed up at my desk and we walked out together. We didn’t talk, just walked to the bus stop. When the bus stopped and I stepped on, Wash offered a hearty, “See you on Monday,” and I went home.

  I spent Sunday doing homework and sitting in my room, avoiding my mother and Chuck. It wasn’t that they were any worse than usual, it was just I needed time to sort out what, exactly, was bothering me so much about Wash.

  I wanted to talk to Becca.

  I also wanted to talk to my dad, and I did call him, but I started off by asking him about his job search. He said not to worry about it, and hearing that set off my defense mechanisms. Here was the state treating me like an adult, and my dad was treating me like a kid.

  He asked me about school, I said it was fine, and I had to go do some homework.