Blood of an Ancient Read Online Free Page A

datura flowers this strong before. Oh my. It’s just lovely, lovely, lovely.”
    Yep, they were datura flowers all right, and Blythe was already higher than a dotty-on-the-verge-of-psychic witch should go. Smelling the flowers shouldn’t make her high, but I had the feeling these weren’t the ordinary plants. Something else was with us—I felt its presence—but I didn’t let on that I knew we were no longer alone.
    Phro walked up to stand with me. She wore a skin-tight, short black dress. Pearls snuggled against her neck in a choker that met in the center of her throat to form a V. Her black hair was pulled tight and gathered in a bun on top of her head. She watched the spinning witch for a second, a slow grin forming at one end of her mouth. “Back in my day, we used this as a poison. Maybe we should get the little twit out of here.”
    “Thought Fred was the twit,” I murmured. Did I mention that datura can be deadly as hell?
    “He’s not here.”
    I didn’t like thinking about that. I hadn’t seen my true spirit guide—or the person I’d grown up believing to be my true spirit guide—since before the battle with the Dweller on the Threshold. “She’ll be all right for a minute. She’s not eating the stuff. Jeez, I bet she can’t even take aspirin. She’s obviously very susceptible if the smell alone is making her, uh… What is she doing now?”
    Castor’s grin was huge. “Jumping jacks?”
    We watched her spunky exercise routine for a sec.
    I pulled them a little ways from Blythe. “This doesn’t feel like vampire magic, and this garden is screaming fairy or pixie. Just look at how healthy everything is. It’s in a warehouse, not out in the open. It takes a special kind of skill and magic to create something like this inside a building. And I can’t imagine anyone but a drug dealer growing this much datura. I’m not sure we have the right place.”
    “You might.”
    The new voice didn’t make me jump. I’d learned early in my investigations that it’s better to let the creature show itself first. Let it think the first move was its choice. It never was, but being prepared and aware was the way to go.
    There was a slight buzzing near my ear and before I knew what was happening, a few low lights clicked on around the room. I saw a brief glimpse of tiny, flapping wings and I followed them to a corner where someone had set up a home. I tilted my head and took in the very human, albeit small, items arranged on a large, formal dining table. No pixies I’d ever met went for lush, human surroundings.
    Especially, red. Lots of red, lush, human surroundings.
    When the speaker finally landed, I got it.
    Then wished I hadn’t.
    I opened and closed my mouth, trying to wrap my head around what I saw. I stared—couldn’t help it. “Uh, you’re, um…you’re—”
    “I am the oldest of my kind.” He interrupted in a voice of mini-thunder.
    “And the smallest,” Phro said. Thank goddess the vampire couldn’t hear her.
    “I didn’t think fairies could be turned into vampires.” I’d found my voice.
    “I am not a fairy.” He sniffed. “I am a sprite. You said yourself it takes a special kind of skill and magic to create beauty such as this.” He waved his hand toward the garden. “You think a fairy could do this?”
    A vampire sprite. I mean, really, could anyone imagine something like this could exist? He was maybe half a foot tall, with pale-green skin and round, black eyes. Tiny fangs protruded over a nearly missing lower lip. I had to squint to see them. He was actually wearing a cape. A cape! That whole Bela Lugosi thing was just movie fiction. Real vampires liked to blend. Their survival depended on it.
    Of course, this little guy couldn’t blend if he tried.
    I eyed the tiny tuxedo, the stink-bug-colored skin. He’d even slicked back the miniscule cap of turquoise hair on his head! Oh, this was just plain creepy.
    “How do you think he feeds?” Phro asked, curious as always. She