Bloodline Diplomacy: A Young Adult Urban Fantasy Academy Novel (Bloodline Academy Book 3) - Lan Chan (thriller books to read .txt) 📗

“You tell me. You’re the one who goes to school with them.”

I was pretty certain none of these vamps came to Bloodline. For a start, a lot of them were too old. Chronologically speaking. For another, I didn’t recognise any of them. I swept the room a couple of times, my breath held, my heart thudding. I didn’t know why I was so apprehensive until I did a couple of sweeps and was certain that Sasha wasn’t one of these vamps. It was ridiculous. Sasha was at Bloodline. I was still relieved.

“Have you ever followed them?”

She pointed at a blonde female in a tight-fitting black bandage dress. Her hair was braided to the side. She was leading a man in a business suit into the bathroom. “We can follow them,” Rachel said. “But short of a stake through the heart, how are you going to stop her from draining him?”

My hand moved involuntary to my neck. I wished I’d put on something more protective than a V-neck T-shirt. As we sat there, I felt completely exposed. If the vampires attacked, I could hold them off with a circle but then what? When they broke through, which they would do in minutes, where would I be?

That didn’t stop me from getting up. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

“Suit yourself.”

She went back to stabbing the table while I hopped up and weaved my way through the crowd. I entered the ladies’ by cutting the line. “Oi! Wait your turn!” I threw the woman an apologetic look but kept going.

There were three stalls and one disabled cubicle. They were all occupied. The pampered new me who had lived with magically cleaning bathrooms was disgusted by the stink and the wads of toilet paper in the corner by the trash can. The me from the streets just blocked it out. I’d seen much worse in my time. I thought nothing of getting onto all fours and peering through the bottom of the cubicles. I was only looking for feet and didn’t linger.

The three stalls were occupied. Which only left the disabled stall at the end. This one took up the length of the wall. It only had one side that was open.

One of the women in the other stalls had come out and was washing her hands. The sound of running water and the hand dryer muffled some of the noises coming from the disabled stall. “You okay, love?” the woman asked me.

I had my ear pressed up to the stall. Her head turned to the side. “Ah, yeah,” I said. “Just checking if my friend is okay.”

That seemed to be more than enough for her. She left as I stood there wondering what to do. When the woman in the stall beside the disabled one left, I jumped inside and closed the door. Using the toilet seat as a rest, I boosted myself over the wall.

Nothing prepared me for what I saw. The man sat on the closed lid of the toilet. The blonde was on his lap straddling him. Her lips were pressed against his neck. I would have thought she was giving him a hickey if not for the single trail of blood that laced around his collar. His hand disappeared under the front of her tiny top. His eyes were closed but the blissful expression on his face was creepy to the extreme. I felt like a voyeur.

Unsure what to do, I slammed my foot against the shared wall. The vibration got their attention. The man’s eyes snapped open. They were bloodshot and his pupils dilated.

He let fly with a bunch of curses. Far from being embarrassed, he lifted the woman off him and punched the wall. I hopped off the toilet and ran outside just as he went for the door to his stall.

Rachel gave me a knowing look. “Don’t tell me, he didn’t appreciate being interrupted.”

“What the hell is going on? He just sat there letting her feed off him.”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it? They don’t even know they’re prey. The endorphins in a vampire bite have them coming back time and again.”

“How…how long can they do this?”

“How long can a person regenerate blood?”

The answer of course was indefinitely. “Shouldn’t we do something about this?”

“Like what? Should we call the cops and tell them a vampire is feeding off humans? Do you think they’ll believe us?” She ground into the table with her knife. “Or should we just take matters into our own hands and stake her? In which case, we’ll bring the rest of the vamps down on us and will most likely end up dead.”

I wanted to go for option two but she got up and we left instead. “So we’re not going to do anything?” I asked when we got into the car. There was a parking fine on the window. Rachel ripped it off and threw it on the ground.

She drove us back. I thought we were returning to Terran when she made a turnoff just outside of Geelong. We stopped in front of what I thought might be a private hospital. The sign outside read: Terran General.

We went through the sliding doors on the side of the cream building. I braced myself for the usual smell of low-grade cleaning supplies and boiled food. It was there but it was overlayed with the scent of freshly cut wildflowers.

Rachel led me through the wings that reminded me very much of the infirmary at Bloodline. The stark difference was impressed on me when she pushed open the double swinging doors. Every single bed was occupied. The patients in those beds were in various stages of disrepair. Some of them were strapped down whilst others sat on the edges of their bed, their eyes completely devoid of recognition.

A half-dozen able-bodied people moved between the beds. They weren’t dressed as nurses but they administered aid. One of these women nodded at Rachel.

I didn’t know where to look. The patients were groaning in their beds. Some of them lashed