by Eve Paludan
“I’d really like you to stop talking.” She offered up her lush black-cherry lips and stood on tiptoe. She was so petite without her high heels that I had to pick her up to kiss her.
She kissed me back as I walked down the hall toward my bedroom with her in my arms.
Chapter 9
Five minutes later, our romantic interlude was put on hold when I got a text from Kingsley: Expect me in an hour in my four-legged form. No use spreading my human DNA at a crime scene.
“Great. He’s coming over so we can sleep.” I poured us goblets of the blood I’d brought home and stashed in my fridge.
“What can he do against any would-be attackers?”
“Plenty. He’s a werewolf.”
“Interesting friend.”
I grinned. “He’s just one of my interesting friends.”
“That’s the shaggy guy I saw in Vegas who carried you off in his jaws?”
“Yeah, he saved me, but it was humiliating to be carried off like a puppy.”
“I’m sure. How many friends do you have, Fang?”
“Two. And, of course, some hangers-on from the blood club would love to be closer friends and get their drinks for free.”
“Am I a hanger-on?” she quipped.
“No. Let’s go to bed.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
“It’s for safety reasons. And sleep.”
“That all you want to do?”
“Hey, my friend’s coming over soon,” I reminded her and led the way to my bedroom.
Justine and I were still kissing when Kingsley showed up.
In his four-legged form, Kingsley bounded through my house, coming in the same way our attackers had, and sliding through piles of broken glass. Instead of positioning himself at the threshold of my blown-off bedroom door, he bounded into bed with us and forced himself between us.
Justine gave a squeal of laughter. “He’s huge!”
“Understatement,” I said. “He’s a behemoth.”
“Thank you, Kingsley, for coming to guard our sleep!” She gave him a kiss right on his canine snout.
“I was going to tell you not to be afraid of a werewolf, but I can see you aren’t,” I said wryly.
“If you trust him, so do I.”
“Kingsley, get down!” I ordered. “When I said I needed you to guard our sleep, I didn’t mean I wanted your fleas.”
Kingsley growled at me and then put his huge head in her lap to be petted.
She scratched him behind the ears until he whined in pleasure and beat me about twenty times in the face with his heavy, fluffy tail. On purpose.
“Come on, Kingsley! Your entrance was funny, but those vampires beat us up and we need to sleep in order to heal.” I paused. “We almost died.”
Kingsley turned and gave my cheek a lick.
I wiped the swoop of saliva from my cheek. “Ugh, I’m all right. Now please, would you get off the bed? I’m trying to make a certain impression on this pretty lady. You’re my friend, not my pet.”
Kingsley tilted his ears forward at her, and then looked at me with his red tongue lolling out and dripping saliva on the blood-spattered carpet.
“He wants a formal introduction. Justine, meet Kingsley in his werewolf form. He’s usually a large and hairy attorney in a custom-made suit, but he didn’t want his human DNA all over a crime scene. Kingsley, this is Justine Black, the bestselling vampire romance author.”
Kingsley bowed his shaggy head, swiped his tongue across her cheek, and leaped off the bed with a thud. He stationed himself on the threshold of my bedroom, facing out—to both guard us and give us a small measure of privacy.
I set my phone alarm for sunset. I lay down on the bed and opened my arms to Justine. There’s nothing like living through an attempted assassination to get close to a woman. She went into my arms, but then turned away from me. In girl-speak, that meant she just wanted to cuddle. We spooned, with her curving her back into my front. It actually felt glorious to hold her.
We had so much to say to each other. But instead of talking, we listened to Kingsley’s panting. Every so often, a drop of werewolf saliva that smelled like rotten meat dripped onto the white carpet, not that it wasn’t already ruined. I could even hear his strong werewolf heartbeat.
Just before we fell asleep, I looked up at the mirrored ceiling and wished very much that I could see Justine and me reflected in it.
Chapter 10
I awoke to the sound of glass being swept up. I jumped out of bed and ran down the hall to the living room. I was surprised to see Samantha Moon instead of Kingsley.
I stood blinking at the sight of a new window already installed and the mechanized curtain rod rehung.
Justine was a step behind me, leaning past me to get a look at the female vampire using a broom and dustpan.
“It’s okay, Justine. Sam’s my friend.”
“Hi, Sam. I’ll get dressed.” Justine headed to the guest room where she’d left her laptop, purse and clothes.
“Sam, what are you doing here?”
“I’m second shift. Kingsley had an emergency and you guys were still sleeping like the undead, so he called me.”
“What emergency?”
“An inmate at the jail tried to kill his troll client and make it look like a suicide by hanging him.”
“That’s horrific!”
“Yeah. Kingsley had to go over to the jail hospital to see his client, get the 411 and then find a judge to get him moved into protective custody.”
I felt terrible. “Maybe it wouldn’t have happened if Kingsley hadn’t asked for a continuance so he could come over here. Maybe—”
“Kingsley told me to tell you it’s not your fault. This sort of thing happens in jails.”
“I still feel bad for the troll. What’s his name?”
“Ezra. I don’t know his last name or if he even has one.”
“Poor guy. Is he going to make it?”
“Yeah. Trolls are apparently tough to kill.”
As Justine came out from the guest room, fully dressed in last night’s slinky little black dress, she and Sam looked at each other a bit awkwardly. Sam was in jeans and a T-shirt. And wearing her special ring that let her go out in the sun. And the one that let her eat food. I envied her those rings.
“Sam, this is Justine Black, a vampire romance author. Justine, this is Sam, my longtime friend.”
Sam smiled. “Nice to meet you, Justine. I know Fang is a fan of your books.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Sam.” Now, Justine beamed at me. “I saw that you have all of my books in the guest room.”
“Just call me fanboy.”
The women measured each other, as women do.
“I didn’t mean to bring trouble to Fang’s house,” Justine said. “My stalkers followed me.”
“It happens,” Sam said without any hint of annoyance.
I looked at the repaired window and rehung curtain rod. “Wow. Thanks a million for fixing all that.”
“Anthony’s hit a few baseballs through our windows, so I have lots of experience in glass replacement. The carpet is a complete loss, of course, and you’ll have to repaint everything from the living room to the bedroom, even the spatter on the ceilings. But at least you won’t have a big hole for another intruder to fly through.”
“Thank you again, Sam.”
“You’re welcome. When Kingsley called me and told me what was up, I took the kids to Mary Lou’s, ran to get some replacement glass and glass-cutting tools and zoomed over here in my van.”
“Awesome. How much do I owe you?”
She dug the store receipt out of her pocket and handed it to me. I got out my wallet and counted out some money to reimburse her, plus added a lot extra for her hard work. Sam had two kids to feed and one of them ate like a boxer in training.
Sam grinned after she realized how much I’d given her. She shoved it in her pocket. “Thanks, Fang.”
“Thank you. How’d
you get past the security guard at the gate?”
“I told him a seagull had hit your window and broken it. I compelled him to believe it and also, to forget he ever saw me after he opened the gate for me.”
“I want to learn how to do that,” Justine said.
Sam asked, “Did no one teach you these things?”
“No. Maybe they thought it would make me too dangerous.”
“It comes in handy every now and then,” Sam said.
“I can fly,” Justine offered. “At least there’s that.”
Sam looked over at me and then back at Justine. “Do you turn into a bat-like creature?”
“No. A big, feathered bird.”
Sam looked out the window. “Fog’s rolling in.”
“I should get going while the getting’s good with those corpses,” Justine said.
“What if we both take these dead vampires out to sea?” Sam asked.
“I’m assuming you fly, too, right?”
Sam replied, “Yep. I also communicate telepathically in my flying form.”
“With other vampires in that form?”
“No, with a spirit inside me. I’ve never tried communicating with another flying vampire because I’ve always flown alone.”
“Me, too,” Justine said. “But I’m willing to try. Thanks for your help in getting rid of the bodies.”
“Well, they’re starting to stink.”
“They reeked long before we killed them,” I said.
Sam curled her lip. “We should get this over with.”
Justine said, “Before you go, you should know they were wearing rings that I think have spells or curses on them.”
“I think the rings let them go out into the sun,” I added.
“Let’s have a look.” Sam unwrapped the plastic wrap from their hands. “Uh-oh.”
“What is it, Sam?” I asked.
“Black serpent-like auras are twisting and turning around the rings and reaching out with hooked tentacles, trying to get me, or whoever, to put on a ring.”
“I can’t see auras,” I said. “What does that black aura mean, Sam?”
Justine answered, “I think it means death.”
“First, death of self and then, literal death,” Sam added. “Whoever wears these rings becomes a slave to the dark master who put the rings on these unfortunate vampires. They likely completely lost themselves and became puppet servants to do the dark master’s evil bidding. And then, not long after, they die.”
Justine shuddered. “Sort of like Lord of the Rings.”
“Worse than that. It’s real,” Sam said. She looked at Justine. “Can you give me a hand? When I was replacing the window, I got some glass down the back of my shirt. It feels like a piece is sticking in my skin and I can’t reach it to get it out.”
“Come in the bathroom,” Justine said.
While the women were busy chatting in the guest bathroom, I put on leather gloves, yanked the four rings off the dead vampires and wrapped up their hands again with the plastic. Then I locked the rings in my wall safe and put my gloves away.
In private, I wanted to discover the power of those rings for myself.
Chapter 11
After Justine tweezed a sliver of glass out of Sam’s back, the ladies stripped down in the guest room with the door shut and shape-shifted to their winged vampire forms.
I saw them leave by the guest room balcony, each carrying a vampire corpse with plastic-wrapped hands and flying over the sea like synchronized swimmers. Their corresponding wingbeats were a breathtaking sight.
After two hours, I started to worry about how long they’d been gone. I also thought about messing with the stolen rings, but I didn’t know when they would be back and I didn’t want to get caught with them. Besides, I had other things to do. Like clean up the mess.
I used a razor knife and a roll of twine for cutting and rolling up my expensive, bloodstained white carpeting into bundles. I busied myself with the task while I worried about the lady vampires.
Finally, to my relief, they landed, got dressed and came out to the living room flashing “mission accomplished” smiles.
“How’d it go?”
“Great,” Justine replied.
“We had a nice long telepathic chat,” Sam added.
“Oh?”
“She has quite a story about her turning. I hope she gets a chance to tell you.”
I nodded. “She started to tell me, but we got interrupted by assassins. It’s the story of my life.”
Sam nodded. “Pick up where you left off. You need to catch that filth who imprisoned her.”
“Yeah. I need to go all medieval on him. Want to stay for a drink? I have blood.”
“No, thanks. I gotta head out and help Tammy study for a test tomorrow.”
The two women gave each other a pinky wave and Sam left.
Justine and I gazed at each other. “You’re pulling up the carpet and padding right now?”
“I’m kind of particular about my nest.”
“Me, too. I have a big house in Vegas, but with a pool instead of your ocean. I keep it immaculate.”
“Nice.”
“I like it. And I can’t really afford Southern California.”
“Yeah, it’s expensive to live here.”
She looked at the chaos I’d created by starting a home improvement project while waiting for her to return.
I apologized, “Sorry about the chaos. I thought I’d try to deal with it somewhat while you and Sam were gone.”
“Can I help?”
“That’s okay. It’s killing me to see it like this, but we can do something else if you want,” I offered. “Listen to music or something.”
“Find me another carpet knife. I’ll help you.”
“Really?”
“Sure. It looks like a hardwood floor under all this carpet,” she said.
“That was a surprise to me, too. While we work on this, will you tell me more about how you got turned and about your vampire tattoo?”
She nodded. “Sam said I should tell you everything. And while I do, I really want to wield a sharp implement of destruction and cut the hell out of something.”
Chapter 12
I handed her a carpet knife and we both got on our knees to continue the carpet removal.
She attacked the task as if she had a vendetta against carpet.
“That’s a lot of anger, Justine.”
“I’m furious about the violent way I was turned. And my entity is furious about the assassins following me here—he’s making me even more obsessed with finding and killing my creator in a dramatic bloodbath.”
“He?”
“Yes, I have a male entity.”
“I think that pairing might be unusual.”
“It is. I didn’t know about that part when I wanted to become a vampire.”
“No one knows what an entity feels like until you have one inside of you, trying to gnaw its way out and ignore the consequences of the actions it made you do.”
“Exactly! Do you know what makes yours tick?” Justine asked. “How to talk to it and reason with it and coexist with it?”
“We’re talking about you right now.”
For several minutes, she cut away at the bloodstained white carpet with a vengeance.
“That much suppressed rage isn’t good for you,” I said. “You could explode like Diet Coke and Mentos.”
She giggled. “Well, is the doctor in?”
“He is,” I bantered back. I worked toward her from the other end of the floor. “I’m concerned that you’re still suffering because of your turning that happened at my club. No matter what, I’ll listen and try to help.”
Her dark eyes shimmered. “No one has ever said that to me. You’re very kind, but I feel like I’m ruined for eternity.”
“No, you’re not. I believe that vampires are the sum of both our good and bad experiences. And if you’re angry or sad or happy or evolving, it’s because yo
u haven’t just existed, Justine. You’ve lived. And without each eventful moment of your crazy life, and mine, we wouldn’t have crossed paths.”
“That’s true. We would have never met at all.” After that, she was quiet. I could tell she was thinking hard.
After we got the ruined carpeting removed and tossed in the Dumpster, I got out the floor steamer because I’m that obsessive about finishing projects that I start. I got the wood floor shining and was pleased that things had gotten done so fast with both of us working together.
“It really looks nice in here,” she said with her hands on her hips.
“It does. I’m not going to re-carpet. I like the wood floor.”
“Me, too. It makes the room look bigger and more inviting.” She turned and looked longingly at the fridge in the kitchen.
“Want a drink? I have plenty of blood.”
“Yes, please. My stomach’s growling.”
“I hear it and my stomach is answering your stomach.”
I poured us each a real Bloody Mary on the rocks and we sat again in the living room.
She wasn’t talking now so I made a little joke: “You know what I really hate—what is the absolute bane of my existence?”
“No, what?”
“Bloodstains.”
She laughed and finally, she began the story of her vampire coming-out party.
And what a story it was.
Chapter 13
“My entity is gay.”
When she opened with that, I almost spilled my drink.
“Well, Miss Author, you sure know how to write a hook.”
“It’s what I do best. Does that secret faze you?”
“No, it just took me by surprise. Love is love, right?”
She nodded.
“Tell me more about your entity, Justine.”
“Well, let’s see. His name was known to millions for his bestselling books—both true crime and fiction—books that he wrote while he was alive. I never hit the New York Times bestseller list until I became a vampire and my famous author entity lent his astonishing voice to my work.”
