The rumor mill had been going haywire for some time now. Most of it centered on a certain Professor. It seemed no one could agree on the number of people he had killed. A dozen or a hundred? Either way, it seemed something had gone very wrong.
“Are you really doing work on hotel internet?”
Anna made a non-commital noise, still scrolling.
“That can’t be safe. Anything could be intercepting you.”
“I’m looking at a message board. Nothing’s illegal. Look,” she spun her laptop around, “the P-Vs are posting their honeymoon pictures. That’s sooo worth spying on.”
“You’re grumpy tonight.”
“I’m hungry.” Anna’s voice turned harsh before she pulled herself back under control. “I don’t have any dollies here and you’re healing up. And some idiots are bringing up the Dankovsky stories again.”
“I see.” Ben settled himself on the other of the room’s single beds. “What’s it up to now?”
“Razie - you know what she’s like - is holding out for 14 dead, saying she swears she knows someone who knows someone who was there. Marcia is pulling up all the stories, like we did, and trying to psychoanalyse him to prove that he descended like an angel from on high and killed hundreds.” She rolled over and pressed palms to her eyes. “If he was going to kill people he could have done it while we were there. I’d have helped. I’d love to have helped. Get me one of the burner phones? I’m going to try calling again.”
Of course they’d saved the number Dankovsky had called them from. They had tried contacting him again once the rumours started, to no response. But they were persistant. Plus it would look so good for them to be able to say off-handedly “Well when I spoke with him he said…”
The soothing voice did wonders for Landin, and soon the edge of anxiety was taken away. If they’d been there to kill him, they wouldn’t have bothered to unhook the vampire from his arm.
“I…I think it’s in the Appalachian Mountains, northeast of here. When I got out, me and my…companion did a lot of travel on foot. I didn’t have any kind of map or anything. We just kept walking and somehow wound up here.”
That was a more specific location than a lot of rumours they followed up on. Was Landin a plant for them? There was a possibility, but Ben really didn’t think they were well-known enough for that. Still, they’d have to be careful. Any school or research facility sounded like it would enjoy to have a poke at a vampire, and he wasn’t going to allow -
“Northeast? We’ll go. Soon.” Anna interrupted his thoughts, and her hand - with blood drying and sticky around her fingernails - flickered as she blew a kiss towards Landin. “Thank you, and for the blood too.”
His forearm twinged from the memory of the bite. He rubbed the spot absent-mindedly. He thought for a moment, hesitantly. An idea was growing.
“Wait…Can you…turn someone else into one of you? A vampire I mean?”
Ben turned his head to look at Landin, really look. He knew that question, had heard it a lot, had asked it himself. And he knew what came after it. Landin definitely seemed Anna’s... type, for lack of a better word, and there was that strange attraction that had pulled her toward him. This could go badly.
Anna was nodding. “That’s how it works. Exchange of blood, all at once or gradually. Uncomfortable to downright painful. I really can’t recommend it.”
