Free The Vampire's Curse, A Paranormal Romance (Undead in Brown County #2) by S.J. Wright

reached behind her, shoved the lid of the cooler aside, and threw three full bags of blood into my lap. Without a word, I ripped the cap from the first one and sucked it down. It rolled down my throat like sweet syrup, the coppery taste infusing me with power that I felt in every cell of my body.
    “ You must have found Meekah.” I mumbled.
    She nodded, her eyes fixed on the road with precise concentration. “She’s waiting for us in Chicago.”
    Meekah was one of my special projects from long ago. During one particularly hot summer I spent in Paris, I heard a rumor from another vampire about a young girl who could foresee the future. It was July of 1746. I’d been carousing drunkenly with a group of ambassadors from England for several months and was growing weary of them all, when I discovered, quite by accident, that there was a vampire posing a representative of Spain in Paris. One of the English fellows related to me an unremarkable story about how this pretender kept odd hours. When I pressed him for further information, he relayed to me that the Spanish ambassador was rumored to be a creature of the night and had drained two kitchen maids of their blood.
    I was not pleased. It was ridiculously sloppy for a vampire to have exposed himself in such a way. With our speed and our ability to compel those around us to forget what they have seen, it has always been relatively easy to keep our true nature a carefully guarded secret from humankind. My place in Parisian society had been a role that I created with great care. I enjoyed my freedom, the opulence in which I lived day to day, and the knowledge that every drop of blood I took from a human would remain my own secret.
    It was easy for me to find the culprit. Being a cautious creature, I did not immediately burst in upon him in his bed to demand explanations. For a week, I followed him from place to place. I watched him dine with royalty and talk earnestly with secretaries and clergymen. From dark corners, I witnessed the money that changed hands as he bribed his way into the highest society parties. The French would never trust a Spaniard, but they would accept his money in exchange for invitations to bright, glittering balls and fifteen-course dinner parties where only the very best food was served.
    One night I watched him go into the back room of a dingy tavern by the docks, and I saw him recklessly murder a barmaid. He had bent her backwards over a rough wooden table cluttered with half-eaten plates of food. While he drained her, flies buzzed lazily throughout the room. Their incessant buzzing was enough to drive anyone mad.
    The filth of the place combined with his thoughtless actions sickened me. Ending his pathetic existence was foremost in my mind. When he looked up from his latest victim to find me standing there in that disgusting place, he seemed genuinely surprised. Perhaps he had thought he was immune from the dark justice that other vampires often dealt out to their peers. Perhaps he believed that he was the only undead creature roaming the Paris streets for blood.
    “ What do you want?” He growled.
    I attacked him without answering. It was rather messy. After I ripped off one of his legs, he began to beg. That sort of ploy did not typically have much effect on me. I was heartless when it came to disciplining my own kind.
    When the tavern owner rushed in after hearing the ambassador’s screams, I compelled him to turn around and act as if he’d seen nothing amiss. The putrid creature before me whimpered and moaned in his pain.
    “ Please spare me.”
    “ Not possible.”
    “ I have money!” He stammered.
    “ I am far richer.”
    His face tensed again in agony as I began pulling off one arm at the shoulder. Then he whispered so quietly that only a creature with superior hearing could understand.
    “ There is a girl I know who sees visions of the future.”
    I paused in my work, eyeing him with disbelief. I had been a vampire for more than a