Page 52 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends
THE NEW SQUAD
brENNAN’S PHONE
“Sturbridge University Meme Center” Facebook Group
Lana Carter: I went to the fourth floor of Folz to study as god intended for the SILENT floor and instead I saw the cute library blanket guy having a moment with some kid with bad hair and this is going to be my thirteenth reason
Comments:
RACHEL LE: Okay but here’s a video bc it was really cute [1238 likes]
You have created a new group with Cole McNamara, Tony Esposito, Mari Vasquez, Dom VanMeter, and you.
Brennan
Clear your schedules, highly important meeting at 6!
Cole
heck yes!
Mari
IDK might be busyyy
Brennan
No, seriously, does 6 work for everyone?
Tony
Mari and I will be there lol she’s just being contrary.
Mari
don’t speak for me
but I will be there.
Cole
and I will bring snacks!
Ignoring the panic of all his different worlds colliding, Brennan flipped through his notebook. He’d already filled pages with possible plans and outcomes, most of them negative. But that was the point of the meeting. He wasn’t alone. They would figure it out together.
“So, let’s see it,” Tony said as he flopped down on the couch next to him.
“See what?”
“Do you sparkle? Do you have fangs? Do you have, like, a dark form you shift into at night?”
“Uh, no,” Brennan said, trying to keep up. “Well, I do have fangs.”
“Fuck yeah,” Tony said. “Can I see?”
“I can’t call them out on command! It’s, like, when I’m hungry.”
“Or horny, right?” Tony asked.
“What the—” Brennan bit back a curse. “How do you know that?”
“Cole told me. He thinks it’s cute.”
“I’m uncomfortable with this line of conversation,” said Brennan.
“Well, I still wanna see. You’ll have to let me watch next time you eat something.”
“I will not be doing that.”
Brennan heard familiar voices drifting toward them from outside, along with a pair of footsteps, and Brennan took the excuse to dart out of his seat and preemptively answer the door.
It swung open to reveal Cole, one fist poised to knock, the other holding a tray of lemon bars.
Mari was a pace behind him with a bottle of wine.
“Hey,” Cole said, a closed-lip, bright-eyed smile making the rest of the room fade away. His presence alone calmed nerves Brennan hadn’t realized were building.
“Hey,” said Brennan.
“Yes, hi,” Mari said, and pushed between them to get through the door.
Moment broken, Cole laughed and darted to press the briefest of kisses to Brennan’s mouth before following Mari to the living room.
Brennan took half a dazed moment to stare after him with heart-eyes before reminding himself to get back to business.
“Okay,” Brennan said, “so we’re still waiting for—”
As if on cue, a knock sounded from across the apartment, in Brennan’s room.
“And, that’ll be Dom.”
He ducked out while Cole set out lemon bars and Mari broke into her bottle of wine, Tony playing a game on his phone. His room was just as he left it, except for the shadow darkening the window from the outside, the pale face peering in impatiently.
Brennan unlatched the window and pushed it open.
“You know, you could use the door.”
Dom perched delicately in her all-black ensemble, dark eyeliner around her eyes, black nails tapping on her knee.
“Your friends were using it.”
“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—the actual evil 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 low on 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.
“I can write an NDA and waiver for anyone participating,” Cole said. “Any legit blood drive would have paperwork anyway, and if anything, people would assume it’s more for the alcohol.”
“Sure, but what do we tell people it’s for?”
Everyone was silent.
Brennan offered, “Art project?”
“We can roll with that,” Tony said.
“They’re gonna think we had something to do with the harbor,” Dom said. “It’s all over the news.”
“Art project,” Tony repeated.
“Performance art?” Brennan said.
“Some sort of protest?” Mari suggested.
“I love it!” Tony said. “I’m seeing something about the Red Cross? Or AIDS?”
“If people are signing NDAs it won’t matter,” Cole said.
“Well that can be our backup-backup cover story,” said Tony.
“No, Tony, that will not be our—”
“Can vampires get AIDS? It’s through blood so, like—”
“We’re getting off topic, I think?” Brennan said.
“No shit,” said Dom. “Look, this is all well and good, but there’s still Travis himself to deal with. Best case, you distract him and I find a way to kill him.”
“Absolutely not,” Brennan said. “Sunny and Nellie stopped him before, without killing him. In 1928, when his girlfriend first tried to pull this. Can’t you bind his powers, or put him in thrall?”
“Are you forgetting he’s massively powerful? I was barely strong enough to break his binding even with him helping from the other side, I have no chance against him alone.”
“What if you weren’t alone?” Cole said. “What kind of help would you need?”
“Other vampires. Other strong vampires,” Dom said.
“That was actually another thing I wanted help with,” Brennan said.
“I’m trying to start reaching out to some of the vampires from the Facebook group.
This person Quinn seems to do a lot with the blood drive, so they’re our best hope, but there are a few people that I know Sunny and Nellie trust. I’m basically going to make an impassioned plea for help.
Tell them the truth. Hope for the best.”
“I can help with that,” Tony offered. “I’m great at sliding into strangers’ DMs.”
Mari made a scoffing noise of disgust.
“Me, too,” Cole said.
“It won’t be enough,” Dom said. “He’s exponentially stronger than anyone else.”
“Except for Sunny,” Brennan finished. “And Sunny and Nellie are in thrall god knows where.”
“They’re in Travis’s greenhouse,” Dom said. “The real problem is the thrall, which will be near impossible to break.”
“So, we can’t stop Travis without Sunny, and we can’t save Sunny without Sunny?” Mari concluded.