Free 0.6-The Asylum Interviews: Trixie by Jocelynn Drake Page B

number a third time and left a message for her to call me immediately, but I didn’t expect her to call me. Something had gone wrong.
    Bronx picked up the phone at the shop on the second ring as I exited the building Evrain had left me on.
    “You heard from Trixie?” I demanded as soon as he answered.
    “No. Problem?”
    “Maybe. You in the middle of someone?”
    “Just finished.”
    “Meet me at Trixie’s place. Don’t go inside. Wait for me.” I paused and pulled up her address in my text messages and rattled it off to the troll.
    “Got it. I’ll be there in twenty.”
    I just hoped that Trixie was still there.

 
    CHAPTER SIX
    T rixie was gone. Her apartment had been empty with the front door standing open when we arrived. Chester had her and I was going to get her and Jo back before the night was out. Jumping into Bronx’s Jeep, I let the troll drive us across town as he seemed to be the calmer of the two of us.
    Bronx and I prowled through the west side of Low Town, which was filled with rusting warehouses and steel mills, endless blocks of crowded row houses, and some excellent chili parlors. I didn’t spend much time over here, but I knew my way around.
    The large Victorian throw-back was up on a hill at the end of a long, gravel driveway as Evrain had described it. The place was situated at the end of a cul de sac, allowing us to do a quick drive-by to check it out. There was a sagging chain-link fence across the front of the drive and around the land with signs announcing that the place was condemned. At first glance, the place looked completely abandoned, with its overgrown yard, broken windows, and peeling white paint. As Bronx slowly turned his Jeep away from the house, I pulled out a spyglass and fully extended it as I twisted in my seat to stare out the back window at the house.
    “Are we pirates now?” Bronx mocked as he pulled up the street.
    “Found this in a junk store years ago,” I said. I clenched my teeth, trying to hold steady in the bouncing car so I could see clearly the house. “Both the lenses are etched with some kind of antiglamour ward. Lets you see things as they truly are. It looks ridiculous, but it comes in handy.”
    “What did you see?”
    Collapsing the spyglass, I turned back in my seat and reattached my seat belt before gently dropping the instrument on the floor of the car. “Turn here and head to the next block over. We need to park behind the house,” I directed as Bronx eased to a stop at the corner. “The house is in fine condition and occupied, if you judge by the shadows I saw moving around. Painted pale blue instead of white with lights on in all the windows. There’s even a freaking fountain in front of the house. That’s some good glamour they’ve got working.”
    Bronx reached forward and tapped the digital clock on his radio. “It’s after four.”
    I frowned as my stomach seemed to curdle. It was time. Leaning over, I picked up a plastic bowl with plastic wrap over the top. Inside were four orange quarters, all of which had been soaked in the liquid Chang had given me. After leaving Trixie’s, we stopped at the parlor long enough for me to prepare the sanguinello as Chang had instructed. If I wanted to poison a vampire, I needed to eat only half of the orange. If I wanted him dead, I needed to eat all four quarter segments. I hesitated, not liking either option, but I needed this as a back-up plan just in case.
    The first orange wedge went down with no problem. It was sweeter than the oranges that we got in Low Town. Less bitter and acidic. I waited, tensed to see if my stomach would reject what I had just eaten. Chang was a reliable source of goods, but this was also the first time I had ingested anything the man had given me.
    “You okay?” Bronx asked as he threw the Jeep in park on the side of the road a block over from the entrance to the nest. This street ran behind the house, nearest to the woods.
    “Not killing me yet,” I murmured as