Not Dead Yet

by Alice Bello

  But then Darla said, “We still need to get them a present... you know, for the bridal shower.”

  Luvici groaned. “You’re still going?”

  “She invited me. Why wouldn’t I go?” She started to talk in a stage whisper. “I mean, your wife never goes to any of your family’s events.”

  I looked back as we moved past them, and saw sadness on Luvici’s face. The dirty crook of a lawyer had many, many faults, but he had helped me out when no one else would—even though it had turned out to be a mixed blessing... a very mixed blessing.

  Darla must have seen the same sadness in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Frankie. I know how all this Lucy and Gabriel stuff is dredging up all sorts of bad memories.”

  With that Lucy stopped, frozen in her tracks. What about Gabriel and me getting married brought up bad memories? She pulled Abbey back toward the unsuspecting two. She needed to hear what they were going to say.

  “I don’t wanna talk about it,” Luvici said dismally.

  Darla wrapped her ample self around Luvici, and Lucy had to pull Abbey all the closer just to hear.

  “It’s alright, Frankie. I know you really wanted your marriage to work out in the beginning.” She sighed. “But we don’t always get what we want in life. So we make do.”

  What did this have to do with me and Gabriel?

  “I don’t... I don’t wish bad things for them... I really don’t. If they can make it, then I’ll be nothing but happy for them... ” Luvicic shuddered and pulled Darla closer to him. “It’s just that... ” He just stopped and shook his head.

  “It’s just that Humans and Weres don’t mix in the long run,” Darla finished for him.

  Wow. Luvicic had told Darla about his family... about werewolves...

  But then Lucy realized what she’d said. Werewolves and humans don’t mix. That felt like a slap in the face, but a little deeper.

  “That’s just what happened between you and your wife—and may I add that she’s a frigid bitch!” Darla continued. “It may just work out for those two kids... that doesn’t mean anything against you, sweetie. I don’t think anyone would be able to deal with that old crone.”

  Luvicic just sighed. “It’s not just that, Darla. There has never been a happy marriage between a human and one of my kind. Either they live two separate lives, or it ends... ”

  I saw Darla shiver, and she moved a fraction of an inch away from Luvici. “Bloody.”

  Abbey pulled hard on me and forced me away from the embracing couple. Before I knew it we were out on the street and Abbey was pulling me down the block toward the car. Whatever spell she’d cast seemed to evaporate the second we walked out into the sun, and the world came back to crystal clarity once more.

  About fifty feet from my car she let go of me and moved toward the passenger side. “Don’t even give what they were talking about a second thought. You heard her, his wife was a bitch already. And you and Gabriel... well, you’re special.”

  Lucy shambled out into the street, heading for the driver’s side door, her keys in hand. Suddenly there was a car horn, and someone grabbed a hold of her and wrenched her back onto the sidewalk just as a woman nearly ran her over while trying to drive while talking on her cell phone and checking her makeup..

  Abbey huffed at her, her hands like iron as they dug into her arms. “Try not to become road-kill on my watch!”

  On her watch? For some reason, statements like that always made Lucy feel like that person was working for someone else.

  Lucy smiled, though. Abbey would never deem anyone superior enough to work for them. That was something they both shared: a huge superiority complex.

  “So, where to now?” Lucy dropped her shopping bags in the back seat of her candy-apple red Mustang, and carefully stepped out into the street again, to get in the driver’s seat.

  “You sure you’re alright?” Abbey asked, cautiously getting into the passenger seat—and pointedly putting on her seatbelt.

  Lucy pushed the overheard conversation between Darla and Luvici out of her mind. He was not Gabriel. And she was neither Darla nor his wife.

  And after all, Lucy thought with a rueful smile on her face, I’m not entirely human either, now am I?

  That thought made her shiver in the hot Sacramento sun.

  “Well,” Abbey pointed down the street to the McDonald's on the corner. “I thought we could stop for some lunch.” Lucy shot her through with a scalding glare. Abbey laughed loudly. “Okay, okay... you can drag me into one of your overpriced eateries. But then I do need to go somewhere else... just for a few minutes. I’ve gotta pick up something special.”

  Special... that was a loaded statement if Lucy ever heard one.

  Chapter 4

  Lucy wallowed in the surprised expression on Abbey’s face. But she had been introduced to the tiny gyros joint by Elaina Enoch, and no one in Southern California had more discriminating taste than her soon to be extended family member.

  They both ordered two gyros a piece, a side of fries to split between them, and orange slushies as their beverages. They fell upon their food like starved dingoes, and didn’t say two words to each other—besides pass the ketchup.

  After their feast, the last thing Lucy wanted to do was any more shopping—an idea that would’ve been laughable only seven short months ago. But as she eased herself down into her high octane automobile, all she really wanted to do was go home to her Gram’s house and fall asleep in her dinky bed for a few hours.

  But Abbey had other ideas.

  Lucy groaned again when she saw where Abbey was headed. She stopped at the turn off to the enormous Wal-Mart's parking lot and shook her head. There was a time not long ago that she could barely afford to clothe herself in the stores sales rack cast-offs. It had been a humiliating time for her, and she had vowed never to set foot in any Wal-Mart ever again. Not even for a midnight junk food binge. Not even at her Gram’s urging.

  But with puppy dog eyes that could melt an iceberg Abbey had Lucy pulling into the parking lot, and following her into the General Merchandise entrance to the building. The place was clean, and the air conditioning was delightfully cold enough to make even the harsh florescent lighting bearable.

  Lucy had only been shopping in Wal-Marts for a short time, but there was something wrong the moment they entered the building.

  Both Abbey and she stood stock still for a few beats as the strangeness of it passed through them.

  “Where’s the Greeter?” Abbey said.

  Lucy mentally slapped herself on the forehead. Of course! There wasn’t a door greeter. Every time she’d ever entered a Wal-Mart store there had been someone with either a dead expression, or an overwhelmingly bright smile stretched tautly across their faces.

  This person was absent, and that fact felt eerily creepy.

  And since Lucy had been kid-knapped by a deranged vampire and nearly killed and mutilated... and brought back as an undead American, she afforded her paranoia and instincts more weight than ever.

  There was an ear-splitting crunch of metal from their left, making both Lucy and Abbey jump. A row of shopping carts rolled forward toward them.

  A moment later a young man with caramel colored skin and the darkest eyes she’d ever seen appeared from out of the shadows. There was something otherworldly beautiful about him, there was no denying that, but what momentarily took Lucy’s breath away was what she felt when she laid eyes on him.

  Kinship.

  Something about this guy tasted so familiar, yet was exotically separate. And from the sudden look of surprise in his expression, she was sure he felt it too.

  But in the next heartbeat his dark eyes pulled away from Lucy and bore into Abbey like the gaze of a hawk sighting prey. The sharpness of that look almost made Lucy step forward between the two. The look was all wrong. Too filled with desperate hunger and need. And Lucy immediately felt the compulsion to keep this strange boy away from her friend.

  He was a predator, her instincts screamed at h
er.

  But then that look softened, as did his melted chocolate eyes, and Lucy recognized that look—it was the look Gabriel gave her when they were alone, when they were close, and so close to going a little too far.

  And it was the look Vin Tokar gave her every time the smug bastard looked at her.

  Love at first sight? Or was it just a random case of hormonal reproductive imperative? Whatever. She forced herself to relax as the strange boy stepped nearer to them. She still felt a buzz with paranoid tension, but it was probably just the combination of sensory irritation (the crash of shopping carts) and strident air conditioning.

  “Hubba hubba... ” she heard Abbey mumble under her breath. The boy walked closer and closer, and if it had been a movie, this would be where the romantic music would swell. And then Abbey gasped and trotted right on past little Mr. Hottsie-totsie cart wrangler—that’s what was printed on his blue Wal-Mart logoed t-shirt. His nametag read Oz. As in the Wonderful Wizard of?

  A baffled frown touched his exotic features, but vanished as he turned and followed Abbey to the line of carts he’d just pushed into the building. Abbey knelt by the second or third cart and swooned and cooed like a love struck teenager.

  Lucy squinted to see the green stick-like creature her friend was making such a fuss over. She stepped closer and heard cart wrangler Oz report: “It’s a praying mantis.”

  “Yeah,” Abbey said breathlessly.

  “Little fella must’ve hitched a ride, and didn’t know when his stop was.”

  Lucy smiled at his bus stop reference. She’d spent far too much of the last year riding public transportation... but she still took a ride every Monday to talk with Shirley. Shirley was good people, and Lucy loved shooting the breeze with her, and confiding some of her insecurities about what was currently happening in her crazy little life. Nothing too specific. She didn’t want to get Shirley into any trouble; trouble that too much knowledge of the supernatural would surely bring to her. Plus she didn’t want Shirley to lock her with one of her patented “You are a crazy person” stares.

  Lucy also went every Monday to ride along with and chat with Shirley because she was more than a little worried the woman would park her hulking bus in front of Lucy’s house and pound until she came to the door.

  It was just something she could well imagine Shirley doing.

  While Lucy shook off her little reverie, she noted that cart wrangler Oz had stepped up and cajoled the Gumby impersonating insect onto his hand. The thing stretched from his wrist to the tip of his forefinger. Abbey smiled joyfully—something Lucy wasn’t used to seeing her friend do—and followed Oz toward the sliding front doors of the store.

  “Want to help me put this guy somewhere a little more insect friendly?” Oz whispered.

  Abbey was already following him like he was the Pied Piper. “I saw some trees at the edge of the parking lot.”

  “That’s the employee parking lot. I’m parked out there. Have you ever listened to Wheezer?”

  Abbey got this dreamy look in her eyes, and her smile brightened to a frightening wattage. “I love Wheezer.”

  “That’s okay,” Lucy said to nobody in particular. “I’m fine with getting ditched for a cart boy at my local Wal-Mart.” She kicked her lavender Gucci sandal at a stray bubble gum wrapper, and then strolled listlessly farther into the store. Merchandise they were pushing—heaps of bargain toothbrushes and toothpaste, and brightly colored skids of Gatorade—lined both sides of the entrance. A large flat screen television monitor hung from the ceiling, pulsing both streaming ads for even more bargain priced merchandise, and below that, glimmering animations of clouds and sunshine.

  A few more feet and the entrance opened up into the store proper. To the right was a large rectangular glass and stainless steel display area where cheap jewelry and even cheaper watches competed for counter space. Behind that were the designer and designer knock-off fragrances and handbags ranging from bland brown to garish hot pink and acid green.

  Abbey’s out with potential new boyfriend number one, and I’m stuck in here with the dregs of retail shopping hell.

  And then Lucy turned and caught her breath. The hottest guy she’d seen in quite a while was strolling her way. She felt a guilty flush come to her cheeks and she looked away for a few beats. She wasn’t dead, but she was spoken for... and she’d “spoken” back... hadn’t she?

  She looked back to the stranger. Two things occurred to her as he approached from the Garden Center/Sporting Goods department.

  One: the gorgeous young man in jeans and a blue t-shirt—that hugged every curve of his lean, powerfully built body—swaggered by her with an axe swung casually over his shoulder. The guy with the axe had not only stunningly blue eyes, but a megawatt smile framed by the most amazing dimples.

  And two: you see people walking around this store with the strangest things in their hands.

  She had once seen a man walking through the store with a shotgun in one hand, and a machete in the other.

  Against her better judgment she returned Axe-boy’s flirtatious smile. Sue me... I couldn’t help myself!

  He turned and walked backward for a few feet, beaming at her like a sexy supernova. He turned away, but stopped, halting in his tracks. He pivoted back around as if he was being rewound in a movie clip, and started back toward where she stood.

  Oh god... see what you get when you act like a silly teenager? She steeled herself. She would just have to let him down gently, and with extreme prejudice. She already had more man-trouble than she was comfortable with. And at least those two—she winced at automatically including the vampire on any list with Gabriel—could regenerate body parts if they were ripped off during a fight.

  A human suitor wouldn’t stand a chance. The poor sap would be hamburger before the bell rung for round one.

  Lucy swallowed and tried to come up with the gentle let down she’d decided on.

  He closed in on her quicker than he should have been able to. The look in his eyes turned from wholesome and handsome, to cruel, dark slits. His lush smile folded into a thin slash of concentration—his amazing dimples just a memory. The axe moved so fast she barely moved out of the way enough to avoid it. She felt its cold metal brush her cheek like a sinister breeze.

  Holy shit! She danced backwards in her high-heeled sandals; Micah’s training miraculously kicking in. She danced away from Axe Boy, just avoiding each of his savage chops. He was moving faster than human... which should have meant she was a dead woman. But after over a dozen axe strikes, she hadn’t a scratch on her. Maybe it was the training—though she hadn’t trained at all in heels with Micah... maybe it was all her years of wearing them. Practice made perfect.

  Maybe she would need to wear high heels to all her battles and training sessions.

  Unexpectedly, Lucy felt whatever was animating her in fast forward give out, like a battery that had drained. Axe Boy moved to the right, but it was a fake out. He doubled back his movements and sent the handle of the axe smashing hard into Lucy’s chest. It hurt like hell as the blow knocked the wind right out of her and left her clutching her arms over her burning chest.

  She tried to step further back but felt her foot slip. She fell backwards to the floor as the axe sailed right through the space she’d been occupying. A comically colored bubble gum wrapper flitted and flipped up in the air.

  Axe Boy glowered down at Lucy, his mouth spreading in a gruesome smile. He was going to get off on killing her, and she was flat on her back, with no weapon and not a chance to get away.

  Lucy held her hands over her face, a last ditch effort to protect herself from what was to come. Chopped to kibbles and bits at Wal-Mart...

  Magic sliced through the air around her. She couldn’t feel magic usually. The only magic she could feel was necromancy. But this power wasn’t that. It was just a force tinged in the same dark power she wielded.

  There was a crack, and a short groan of metal... and then a huge crash.

  Lucy s
napped open her eyes and inexplicably her attacker was gone. What the...

  She sat up and saw where he’d gone. He was flattened to the hard white and gray tiles of the floor, blood dripped from his mouth and a huge gash gaped on his temple. A hulking flat screen television monitor pinned down the rest of his unconscious body.

  Lucy felt like her eyes were bugging out of her head.

  “That was so freaking amazing!” Oz, the cart wrangler, enthused from behind her. “Did you see that thing just fall on that guy?”

  Nope, I missed the jumbo TV falling on the homicidal lunatic.

  “It totally saved you from that psycho!”

  Lucy looked over her shoulder. Oz stood, shaking his head in disbelief, his hands held up behind his head, an exclamation of his surprise.

  Abbey Adams stood a good foot back from him, a cool, indifferent set to the features of her face. But it was her eyes that made the hairs on the back of Lucy’s neck stand straight up. Dark shadows played in her eyes like storm clouds. Lucy recognized the taste of that darkness, and felt herself shiver. It was death itself, the magic that she felt every time she’d had to put her talents to use.

  She’d been training regularly with Gram, reanimating a dead bird here, a road-kill opossum there. And more than once she’d dragged Lucy into a graveyard and made her reach out to the dead without animating them. It was an exercise in control: control Lucy sorely needed. She never wanted her nasty necromantic power to get away from her again.

  Accidentally raising an entire cemetery of rotting corpses would do that to you.

  Abbey blinked her eyes and the dark shadows dissipated like mist, vanishing completely in seconds. She looked to the unconscious axe boy and the cracked and now smoking electrical appliance she’d dropped on his head, and gulped a hasty, shocked breath.

  Was that guilt that flickered across Abbey’s expression... and if so, was it guilt for her actions, or for getting caught? Lucy knew her grandmother would not approve of her tapping into any black magic, and especially Lucy’s kind of magic.

  Abbey shrugged at Lucy and a little smile graced her lips. A shiver ran through Lucy as she tried to reconcile the seemingly innocent girl in Goth-guise before her, and the cold, efficient black witch who had been standing in her place only a moment before.