As Sawyer pulled out a set of tools, Eva stepped straight to her feet behind Serena and Nel. She rushed into the bathroom and proceeded to empty her stomach into the toilet.
— — —
Nel watched with narrowed eyes as the vampire took off after Eva.
Keeping the notebook in hand in case Eva had more for her to write down, Nel followed the two. She couldn’t let the vampire be alone with Eva while the girl was in such a vulnerable state. It wasn’t so much a matter of if but
Though, as Nel watched the vampire pat Eva on the back, she had to admit that the situation was disconcerting. Every vampire that she had ever met had been a bloodthirsty monster bent on killing as many of her sisters in the Elysium Order as they could before they got put down.
One acting… civilized just didn’t mesh with what she knew to be true.
She knew that they could act civilized. Sometimes, at least. If every vampire was in a constant state of madness, they wouldn’t be half as hard to find.
“I’m fine,” Eva said, shrugging the vampire off her back. She wasn’t too steady on her feet as she made her way to the sink and started washing out her mouth. “It’s just the smell. I don’t know how he can just ignore it.”
“Do you want to lie down for a few minutes?”
Eva gave a slow nod of her head. “I don’t think he’s going to be doing anything interesting for the next while. He’s performing surgery on the corpses. Currently, he’s removing the stomach–or what’s left of it–of one of the bodies.”
The vampire slung one of Eva’s arms over her shoulder and helped her over to the bed. “Sounds like you’re in for a long night.”
“Maybe Nel would be willing to light up some frankincense?”
Nel blinked at being addressed. “I thought you hated it.”
“I do,” Eva said. Her eyes were closed, but Nel could still feel some imaginary glare. “But if it overpowers the scent of rotting and bloated humans, I think I’ll take it.”
With a shrug of her shoulders, Nel went to her bag and started rummaging through. Frankincense had been one of the things she had brought plenty of. Keeping some lit for a while would hardly dent her stores.
It didn’t take her long to pull out the burner and a few pellets of frankincense. With her gemstone focus, Nel sparked the burner and stoked the flame. She carried it into the main room to help Eva sooner rather than later.
Soon enough, the wooden scent of frankincense filled the small room.
Nel gave a slight start as she realized that she had forgotten something. She grabbed the roll of duct tape and slapped a few strips over the smoke detector in the room.
“Alright,” Nel said, “I’ve–”
A heavy knock at their door interrupted her. Though she had to wonder if it was actually a knock or not. It sounded more like someone took a sledge-hammer and used that as a door knocker.
Nel gripped her focus in her hand. No one had ever disturbed them at the other motels. Now they were extremely close to Sawyer and someone knocks?
She took a quick glimpse of the other side of the door.
As soon as she saw the motel logo on the man’s shirt, she let out a long breath. “It’s just the manager right? He works for the motel, at least.” Serena had taken care of the paying, so she hadn’t actually seen any employees. “He must have been walking by and smelled the frankincense.”
“Or he broke through my geas and realized that we didn’t actually pay him anything,” Serena said as she walked out of the bathroom, though she looked just as wary as Nel felt.
“It’s a human,” Eva said, still looking sick and leaning over the sink. “That’s all I can really tell you. I’ll stay hidden back here.”
There was another heavier knock against the door. If the guy knocked any harder, the door might come off its hinges.
“Best not to keep him waiting,” Eva said.
Serena stepped towards the door. “I’ll handle it. I’ll see if I can’t make him think that the frankincense is just his imagination.”
While Serena moved, Nel shuffled her feet. The chalk-drawn ritual circle was between the room’s two beds with part of it underneath one bed that had been shoved aside while it was being used. Most of it was out of sight from the door, but some poked out. She tried to disguise as much of it as she could before the manager saw. As long as he didn’t enter the room, it should be fine.
“Is something the matter?” Serena asked in a too-sweet voice as she opened the door. Her smile was just a bit too unnerving for Nel’s tastes. She had mastered the art of giving wide, polite smiles without revealing her fangs.
