Dead on Arrival, page 4
“We are friends, Giles! Now and always! This wasn’t personal, it was business. Why can’t you understand that?” Oliver shouted back.
“Because it doesn’t make a bite of sense! My name might not be on all the documents around here, but I’m the one who came up with the compound that makes the whole serum work, remember? If it weren’t me, you wouldn’t have a serum to sell at all, so I think that entitles me to some of the profits, don’t you?”
“I already told you, I’d be happy to share a slice with you if the deal goes through, and we can negotiate on the rate, but—”
“There you go with your ‘buts’ again!” Giles cut him off and slammed his fists against the counter, leaving deep dents in the wood. “No. No more buts, Oliver. If we don’t go fifty-fifty on this, I’ll do everything I can to sabotage any deal you strike. Do you hear me? I mean it!” Giles shouted and whooshed past me in a supersonic blur, knocking over a table and sending dozens of vials crashing to the tile floor.
Oliver stood staring at the mess, as shocked as I was at Giles’ behavior. Befuddled, he pulled his wand from his robes, muttered a spell, and waved his wand. As the glass shards lifted from the ground and reassembled themselves, I popped out of the vision back into my own shoes, disoriented and confused.
I blinked several times until I found my bearings and realized that I stood alone in the entrance to the kitchen; the others must’ve ushered Oliver away to the hospital while I zoned out, but I charged through the foyer to the front door to make sure. Emile stood just inside the front doors, staring out at the drive, hiding from the sun and chewing his lower lip. I followed his gaze and saw Blair and Kiki in the front of Blair’s car as she put the vehicle in reverse and tore out of the drive.
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked Emile as Thorn and Jadis headed back toward us.
“It’s impossible to say for sure,” Emile answered without looking at me. “It depends on how long ago Oliver’s exposure happened and how quickly they can get him to the hospital for treatment.”
“Can the doctors actually stop the process?”
“It’s possible, but again, it depends on a lot of factors. There’s always the possibility that he could…” Emile trailed and shook his head. “Never mind. It’s better you don’t trouble yourself with that.”
“No, tell me. I can handle it.”
Emile hesitated while he stared into my eyes, searching for something to convince him I was right. Finally, he nodded. “If too much time has passed since his exposure and the healers administer the antidote, they might trap Oliver in a permanent purgatory between being alive and undead.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around that, no matter how hard I tried. “What does that mean, exactly?”
Emile’s expression fell. “He’d effectively be in a coma. The healers would have to keep him on a blood drip just to keep him alive, but he wouldn’t be able to communicate.”
“That sounds horrible…”
“That’s because it is.”
“And what happens if they’re too late? He just becomes a vampire?”
“It’s not guaranteed to happen. That also depends on the level of his exposure and the time that’s passed since. He could also simply pass away, but as it stands, there’s no way to know where he’s at in the process. The healers will have to determine that, though I will say he seemed to progress very quickly, so I’d wager he got quite a dose.”
“That reminds me, you said earlier that there are other ways than a bite to turn someone into a vampire. What are they?”
“Any contact with a vampire’s blood can be infectious, specifically if it’s ingested somehow. Bites are the most common form of transmission, but the compounds in our blood that cause vampirism and give us our powers can infect humans no matter how the blood enters their body.”
A shiver ran down my spine as I thought back to the vision I’d had. Giles seemed awfully upset at Oliver for betraying him somehow in their business. But what had the betrayal been about? And could it really have been bad enough to motivate Giles to attack someone he called his best friend?
It wasn’t totally farfetched; Giles was a vampire, after all, and Oliver said he’d spoken with Giles before he came to Kindred Spirits — but if he hadn’t bitten Oliver, then what’d happened? And was Giles the one Oliver was looking over his shoulder for? I might never know now, depending on how things went for Oliver at Spellfield.
Jadis plopped her hand on my shoulder when she reached Emile and me, tugging me out of my thought spiral. “Are you okay, Selena? You froze back there. Did you have a vision?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. It was a quick glimpse of Oliver fighting with Giles inside Petals & Potions. I don’t know what exactly they were fighting about, but it seems like Oliver was trying to take a bigger cut of a deal on a serum they’d developed together than Giles thought was fair. He was furious about it.”
Thorn and Jadis exchanged glanced at each other uncomfortably.
The color steadily drained out of Jadis’ face while she digested what I’d told her. “Does that mean what I think it does…?” she asked with her voice low while she rubbed her arms.
“I don’t know for sure, but how many other vampires could Oliver have crossed paths with between Petals & Potions and here?”
“I hope he’ll be okay.”
“I’m sure Oliver will be fine,” Thorn said, attempting to comfort us both. “The healers at Spellfield are some of the best in the world, so we have nothing to worry about. Whatever needs to happen, they’ll see to it, I’m sure of it,” Thorn said and wrapped his arm around my shoulder while we watched Blair’s car disappear around the bend in the drive.
“I hope you’re right,” I said, though I couldn’t stop thinking about the horrible possibilities Emile had told me about. As angry as Giles had been at Oliver in the vision I’d had, could he really have wanted to turn Oliver into a vampire for revenge? There had to be better, less conspicuous ways to get back at him. Still, I had nothing else to go on, which ate at me. Would any of this have happened to Oliver if we hadn’t approached him to work with us? Did it matter?
Regardless, we’d found ourselves caught up in another fiasco somehow, and I had a feeling I was the only one who might sniff out the truth — which meant another trip to Petals & Potions, this time on my own.
Chapter Five
Though I insisted I could make my way back into town alone, Thorn refused, probably assuming I’d get lost without his expert direction. Mostly, though, I think he was just looking for an excuse to spend more time alone with me.
“I'm telling you, Thorn, I'll be fine,” I said, but he shot me a skeptical look. “What? It’s like you said, the entire town spins out from the Starforce Tower at the center. It’s impossible to get lost, remember?”
“Maybe for someone who’s lived here their entire life, sure, but that’s not the reason I’m concerned about you being alone,” Thorn countered with his arms crossed over his chest. “In case you’ve forgotten, you’re talking about speaking one-on-one with a vampire who might’ve poisoned his own business partner. I’m not letting you do that on your own.”
Though I didn’t see what support he could offer me if Giles attacked, I chose not to argue — I wouldn’t have won, anyway, and I could think of worse things to do than spending time with Thorn.
“Besides, we don’t have Blair’s car to use this time, so how exactly are you planning on getting back into town without it?” Thorn asked.
Jadis shrugged and laughed. “He’s got a point there, Selena.”
Beaming, Thorn nodded. “Like it or not, you need me for this. I’m the only one of the three of us who has a clue how to use the teleportation spell. I’ll have you there and back in a flash.”
“Why didn’t you use that the first time we went then?”
“Because a solo car trip is much more romantic, duh,” Jadis teased, and I hadn’t thought of it that way. The realization made my stomach flutter, and the guilty look that settled on Thorn’s face gave him away.
“Whatever. Let’s just get a move on. I don’t want to let Giles slip through my fingers if he really had something to do with all this,” I said and looped my arm through Thorn’s. His face flushed, and Jadis snorted.
“I’m tempted to crack another joke here, but I promised you I wouldn’t, so I’ll keep quiet,” she said.
“Good idea. Come on, Thorn. Let’s go.”
“Er, right, yeah,” Thorn muttered as he fumbled around in his robes for his wand. “Hold on tight and don’t let go,” he said when he’d found it. “Evanesco!” he shouted, and the room turned into a swirl like someone had flushed us down the drain.
The magic pulled my molecules in different directions, threatening to tear me right in half, and the pressure grew unbearable until it passed as quickly as it’d come. Moments later, Thorn and I popped back into existence right outside Petals & Potions, which showed few signs of the day’s earlier festivities. Someone had moved Oliver’s giant floral display to the center of the square, probably to serve as decoration, and I focused on it while I tried to reorient myself in my body.
“It’s uncomfortable to travel this way, but you’ll get used to it eventually,” Thorn said, gripping my arm tighter to keep me from falling over. It took me several seconds and deep breaths to feel even somewhat steady on my feet again.
“We’ll see about that,” I said as my stomach continued doing flips.
“As difficult as it is, it still beats flying on broomstick.”
The thought of soaring over the mountains and roofs of Starfall Valley on a thin strip of wood made me the nausea already swirling in my stomach churn, so I nodded. “I don’t even want to imagine how terrifying that is.”
“It depends on who’s at the handle, but yeah, it’s exhilarating. Anyway, are you okay?”
I straightened up and tried to project confidence but wasn’t sure it worked. “I’m fine, or at least I will be. Don’t worry about it. Just follow me and let me do the talking.”
“I planned on it,” Thorn said, so I stumbled toward the entrance to Petals & Potions with my arm still linked to his.
Chimes attached to the door tinkled as I tugged it open, and a powerful wave of floral scents washed over me. In normal circumstances, the smell wouldn’t have been as overpowering, but thanks to the teleportation’s discombobulation, the threat of a headache crept up from the base of my skull. No one greeted us, so I walked to the front desk to look for a bell to ring, but there wasn’t one. I turned to Thorn. “Do you think he’s even here?”
Thorn shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe he skipped town already.”
“Why would I do that?” a voice asked, making both of us jump. I whirled and found Giles standing in the doorway behind us with his arms full of bundles of what looked like begonias. How had he come in without making the chimes on the door sound? Was that part of his ninja vampire powers?
“Oh, Giles, you almost gave me a heart attack,” I wheezed, clutching my chest.
Giles sniffed at the air. “So I smell,” he said, and goosebumps erupted across my skin like a shock wave. The realization that Giles could smell my heart beating made me double and then triple guess my decision to come here to talk to him — even with Thorn at my side. As if he’d sensed my trepidation, Thorn tightened his grip on my arm. “Can I help you with something? I thought you’d be tied up with Oliver by now.”
“Well, that’s actually why we’re here,” I said, and Giles’ eyes narrowed.
“W-what do you mean?” he asked, and I wasn’t sure if he was playing dumb or if he really didn’t have a clue what’d happened to Oliver. Then again, the only way Giles could’ve known was if he’d done the poisoning.
“Something unfortunate happened while Oliver was visiting us at Kindred Spirits,” I began cautiously, waiting to see if he’d let anything slip.
Giles stared at me blankly. “What?”
Thorn cleared his throat. “He came down with some kind of fever. Emile, the chef at Kindred Spirits who’s also a vampire, seemed convinced that Oliver was turning into a vampire himself.”
Giles’ expression twisted and for a moment I worried he might drop all the beautifully arranged flowers he’d been holding, but he recovered quickly and carried them around us to the front desk where he dropped them in a huff. When he turned back to us, he looked like he’d seen a ghost. “Vampirism? But how? That’s not possible.”
“That’s what we wanted to ask you,” I said. “As far as we know, you were the last person to see Oliver before he came to Kindred Spirits — he told us you filled him in on our visit and that he headed right for us after his lesson with Azalea. Did you notice anything, well, strange about him before he left?”
Giles gawked at me, unable to find words. Finally, he seemed to snap back to his senses. “N-no, not really. It was a short, to-the-point conversation,” he said. “Most of ours are these days,” he added in a mutter and looked away. That got my attention.
“Really? Why’s that?”
“It’s irrelevant,” Giles snapped, seeming to find his confidence again.
“Really? I’m not sure it is,” I said, thinking back to the explosive outburst I’d seen Giles have in my vision. Giles’ eyes raked over me, making my heart rate surge, but I stood tall. “I’ve heard rumors that you and Oliver haven’t been seeing eye-to-eye about Petals & Potions lately. Is that true?”
Giles sneered. “You’ve been talking to Bella, I see. She’ll say anything.”
I hadn’t, but now that Giles mentioned it, that sounded like a great idea. Based on my one interaction with the baker, Bella seemed like the textbook definition of a nosy neighbor, and given that her bakery was right next door to Petals & Potions, she’d probably have a lot of insider information to share.
“I got that from someone else, actually,” I said, keeping things vague. I didn’t know if Giles had a clue about my visions, but I didn’t want to give it away.
Giles sighed, deflating. “Then I guess there’s no use in denying it. Oliver and I have been having some, um, d-disagreements about the future of the business, but that’s still irrelevant to what happened to him. Is he okay? Where is he?”
I wasn’t about to let Giles change the subject now that he’d loosened his tongue. “He’s fine. My aunts took him to Spellfield for treatment,” I started, and though Giles opened his mouth to press me further, I cut him off. “What did the two of you disagree about?”
“Nothing major. Oliver likes to spend, and I’ve been encouraging him to keep costs in mind,” Giles said, refusing to meet my eyes, which did little to convince me he was telling the whole truth — especially because that wasn’t what I’d seen in my vision. My visions weren’t always one hundred percent accurate, but the argument I’d witnessed between the two of them was so visceral that I doubted it was wrong, or at least not substantially.
“That’s all?” I prompted.
“Things haven’t been great for us financially lately,” Giles said, which didn’t match my impression of their business. “Specifically, Oliver’s flowers. They used to be our bread and butter, but these days he’s more often losing money. As you can imagine, it’s hard to grow things here, so he ends up importing a lot of plants at enormous costs, and hardly anyone’s buying them.”
Could that have been why Oliver was talking to someone about striking some sort of deal? I didn’t know if Petals & Potions had any debt, but if they did, that would explain why Oliver had been so eager.
“And what about your part of the business? Is it holding up?”
Giles smiled smugly. “My potions are selling better than ever. If it weren’t for them, we’d have gone under months ago.”
“So why not just pivot to focus on that?”
“That’s a good question, and one you’ll have to ask Oliver. Lilith knows I’ve tried, but he can’t give me a satisfactory answer. He’d rather dream up new schemes like offering floral arrangement lessons than face the fact that his flower business is snipped.”
“Sounds like you aren’t thrilled with him about it.”
Giles’ eyes flashed as he sized me up. “I-I hope you aren’t trying to say you think I did this to him. Oliver and I have disagreements, sure, but what business partners don’t? I’d never hurt Oliver. He and I are like brothers, we have been since our time at the Institute. Nothing could change that, l-least of all this silly store,” he insisted, but I didn’t buy it.
“What have you been doing since Oliver left for Kindred Spirits?” I asked, sidestepping him.
Giles’ face hardened. “Cleaning up after him, as usual,” he grumbled, then seemed to catch himself. “I mean, h-he’s one of the messiest guys I know. There were flower clippings everywhere in the back room after his lesson with Azalea, not to mention all the stuff I still need to carry in from the festival.” He stood staring at us expectantly, but when neither Thorn nor I spoke, Giles kept going. “H-hey, now that I think about it, ask Azalea if she knows anything. She worships Oliver and follows his every move, so if anyone would notice something wrong about him, it’d be her. Besides, the two of them were alone together for a long time.”
That might’ve been true, but Azalea also wasn’t a vampire. Though she could’ve gotten her hands on some form of vampire’s blood, it seemed much more likely to me that Oliver had had direct contact with the undead. That reminded me of another vampire I’d seen lurking around Petals & Potions earlier, but I’d circle back to Dominique later.
“Good thinking. Do you have Azalea’s contact info?”
“I-it’s gotta be around here somewhere,” Giles said and zoomed behind the front desk from which he produced a huge, leather-bound notebook and slammed it on the surface — right next to the noticeable dents his fists had left in the wood. Giles noticed me staring at the spots and tried to slide the notebook over them, but it was too little, too late. “T-this is our customer book. We use it to keep track of sales and lessons and whatnot. Ah, here we go, here’s Azalea’s phone number,” Giles said, pointing at her name on the page.
