Blood Ties by Kevin Emerson Page A

“That’s all I’ve got right now. We’ll just have to keep our guard up, and figure out something.”
    They turned at the sound of screeching tires and saw a taxi careening up Twilight Lane. It halted in front of the house, and the gaunt driver, Miles Frisht, stepped out, adjusting his cockeyed cowboy hat and popping the trunk. The door squealed open below and Sebastian and Bane appeared, hauling the family’s bags. A moment later, Phlox rushed out with a stuffed shoulder bag, wearing a black satin dress that matched Sebastian’s black suit and coat. Vampires always dressed nicely for travel. Oliver and even Bane had to wear pressed pants and their long black coats.
    Sebastian dumped the bags in the trunk and checked his pocket watch. “Let’s go, you two!” he called to the roof.
    Oliver and Dean leaped down to the yard, then stuffed themselves into the backseat with Phlox and Bane, who turned up his nose as Dean squished in beside him.
    â€œMan, wash your mongrel, lamb!”
    â€œShut up,” Oliver huffed.
    â€œBoys,” Phlox hissed, finally directing some frustration at Bane. “You will behave in public.”
    Minutes later, they were lugging their bags down two nonworking escalators and into the grimy abandoned bus tunnel downtown. In the shadows stood four sets of gleaming gold elevator doors. Other vampires lurked about in the dank station, waiting, many dressed for work and carrying purses and briefcases.
    The Nocturnes crowded into a teeming elevator. As soon as the doors slid closed, it dropped at near free-fall speed, slowed at the last second, then opened to the charion transit hub, on the bottom floor of the underground center.
    The station was alive at the start of the night, well-dressed vampires rushing importantly toward the many entryways to charion platforms. There were long lines at the antique ticket booths. A large display high on one wall listed the arrivals and departures in bright orange. Every minute, the letters and numbers snuffed out like fires, then relit with updated information.
    Oliver stared up at the giant route map on the ceiling and felt a rush of excitement. Lines of glowing magmalight connected golden etchings that represented stations around the world. He loved the possibility of the map: all those places you could go. He traced the different routes: Seattle to Playa Del Fuego, an Underworld city beneath Los Angeles; to Naraka, the second-largest Underworld city, beneath Hong Kong; to Reykjavík, which was a popular vacation spot in the fall and winter, and on and on.
    â€œOliver,” Dean called. Oliver saw that his family and Dean had made their way to the enormous café that dominated one whole side of the station. Its large green sign would have been familiar to any human, but not the drinks on the menu: In each case, milk had been replaced with different bloods (one notable exception was at holiday time, when vampires went crazy for eggnog). While his parents ordered, Oliver joined Dean beside a tall shelf of specially designed coffee and espresso machines that infused blood during the traditional brewing. Beside that was a display of Eternal Dark Roast coffee beans, which were blended with cayenne peppers.
    Soon the Nocturnes were walking toward their train platform with foot-tall cups: Phlox with a triple-shot nonfat raptor-blend latte, Bane with a six-shot hellcat frozen drink, Oliver and Dean each with a quad mocha rouge, and Sebastian with a taller, very thin cup that held his five shots of espresso diablo.
    They entered the domed tunnel to a Charion platform, feeling the rumble of arriving and departing trains in the walls and floor. The platform was crowded with other travelers. Kids scrambled about on the walls between long video screens, thin as fabric, which hung down from the ceiling and blinked with advertisements.
    Soon a low, humming vibration rose up Oliver’s legs all the way to his teeth, and his