Dust and Shadow (ORIGINAL BLOOD VAMPIRE SERIES Book 2) by Stuart Land

Author:Stuart Land [Land, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Georgetown, Washington, D.C.—present

My eyes opened to my beautiful Jeremiah to reassure him of his eternal safety, but he was gone. Dazed, I glanced around. I sprawled on the ancient wood floor of that warehouse where Gailene and the twins lured their unsuspecting prey to feed upon.

Moments ago, I was dancing away in Abraham Lincoln’s Inaugural Ball, then deep in sex with the love of my life. This wasn’t a good segue back to the 21st century.

My flashlight had rolled away, its beam shooting across the massive room at an obtuse angle, giving it the look of a dilapidated haunted house. It had a familiarity to it even though it wasn’t in the same state as I’d experienced it through Gailene’s vision. Now, it was full of different size crates stacked one on another. Grabbing the flashlight, I swung it around the room.

The crates were arranged in rows so they could be accessed. Yet it didn’t appear that anyone had been in this room for a hundred years. They bricked up the few windows and the once wide receiving entry. The only exit was the door to the tunnel. It was as if I was in the storage room from the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Well, the mini version, anyway.

Up and down the rows I searched, looking for a sign to tell me what was inside the boxes. Numbers and letters coded each, which didn’t show the contents. The crates were sectioned by size. Really big crates and very small crates. A medium crate was at waist level. No luck prying open the top with my fingers. Where was that handy crowbar when you needed one, I’d like to know? Never mind, I found a brick.

Battering was noisy and clumsy, but with my new muscles, I pretty much destroyed the top. So much for being inconspicuous. Pushing away the straw packing, twelve giant metal lids stared up at me. The first random one I eased out with my fingers. My strength impressed me.

Up came a large mason jar, about a gallon. Etched into the glass, the letter T. On the crate’s side, also a T. Placing the jar on another crate, I shone my flashlight into it. Big gasp! Guess I didn’t think it was going to be jams or preserves. It was blood. I swung my light at the other crates. They marked the ones in that row with the letter T. But the next row was the letter B. The next J. Each row had a different letter or set of letters.

Being somewhat smart, I surmised the letters stood for those vampires I know and love, plus many more of the family. But if they were hoarding blood to drink—as we humans stash canned foods in case of some emergency—it made little sense they’d keep it in an unrefrigerated, two-hundred-year-old warehouse. Seriously, how long can human blood keep?

The warehouse seemed big to me, about twenty-five yards across and fifty deep. From the stairs, there may be another floor.

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