Page 138 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends

“It’s not a mutually exclusive thing.”

“Whatever, are you gonna invite me in, or what?”

They did a quick round of introductions (“Wait, I thought Dom was evil,” Tony said. Mari kicked him in the shin.) and then settled with too many people on the couch, Dom hovering across the room with her arms crossed.

All eyes were on Brennan.

He swallowed. Right. The floor was his. He wasn’t really used to being the person people turned to for guidance, leadership, or solutions. He was used to being the problem.

Cole caught his eye and gave him a little nod and smile. Brennan could do this.

“Okay, so,” Brennan said. He shuffled through his journal some more. “Travis—theactualevil vampire—is planning an attack at the vampire ball, in less than a week. We know they’re using vampire blood to roofie everyone into killing each other. If the vampires drink it, they go feral and get desperate for blood. If humans drink it, they’re halfway to getting turned. If everything goes the way Travis wants it, not only will this be a very public attack that will be really hard to explain away, but we could end up with a lot of new baby vampires.

“The way I see it, there’s a few routes we can take. A, we stop Travis, which is tough, because I get the feeling no one stops Travis from anything. B, we save Sunny and Nellie, who stop Travis, which is tough because Travis’s thrall is too strong to break on our own. C, we prepare for the worst. We can try to restock the blood for the caches, and try to keep the vampires from killing people at the ball.”

“Prepare for the worst seems like our best option,” Cole said with gracious optimism.

“Great, how do we keep vampires from going into a frenzy without killing anyone?” Dom asked.

“It’s possible we can prevent it,” Brennan said. “He basically spiked my tea, so maybe he’s planning on tampering with the food. Maybe we can get ahead of it.”

“Spiking the punch at a party?” Tony laughed. “Classic.”

“I bet I can sweet-talk the hotel into telling me who’s catering if no one knows but Sunny and Nellie,” Cole said, “so we can make sure he can’t get to the food before the ball.”

“Then we get to the dance early, play the middle school chaperone, and watch everyone who approaches the snack table like a hawk,” Tony said. “I love it, I know every trick in the book when it comes to slipping stuff into drinks.”

“Jesus, Tony!” Mari said.

“Shit, I meant ’cause Nonna doesn’t like to take her meds, so we put it in her juice!”

“Travis is powerful,” Dom said, cutting in. “What if he finds a way?”

“If anything seems off, we can evacuate everyone,” Cole said. “I’ll get floor plans when I call about the caterer.”

“We also need blood,” Brennan said. “The whole clan will be lowon blood after the attack. If we don’t refill the caches, the vampires will come to the ball hungry whether Travis’s plan works or not.”

“I saved one cache before Travis got to it, but that’s only about twenty pints,” Dom offered.

“And there are ten caches in Boston that were all emptied out, so, we’d need 180 pints,” Brennan said.

Tony let out a low whistle. “Right, so… where do we get a fuckton of blood?”

“I mean, I could draw from everyone here,” Mari said, “but we can only give so much blood each.”

“I have a bunch of friends from GSA and res life and the library,” Cole offered. “I could probably get them to donate blood to a sketchy cause.”

“Yeah, okay,” Mari said. “We can set up an… underground blood drive.”

“Yo, hold on,” said Tony. “Me and my friends used to donate blood, and then get blasted off a wine cooler since our blood-alcohol level was wonky.”

“Is that a thing?” Cole asked.

Mari pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yeah, it’s a thing, but it’s pretty irresponsible.”

“We’re already having an illicit blood drive,” Tony said. “Why not bribe people with alcohol? Anyone who donates gets a free beer or something? I could get a bunch of people to come that way.”

“How do we keep it secret, though?” Dom said.