He laughed. “No, no. Sophia is the vampire who made me.”
“So, she’s like, what, a mom to you?” God, she hoped all that incestuous vampire stuff from Anne Rice’s books wasn’t true. Because it would be gross, not because he was cute.
“No, not exactly.” He paused, the only sound their feet falling on the broken asphalt. “It’s more like she’s my mentor. I definitely do not have mother-son feelings for her. But I can’t imagine ever being good enough or hip enough to be anything to her. So, I just sit back in awe and worship from afar.”
“From afar, but you were going to a party at her house?” Jessa raised one skeptical eyebrow. “That sounds like more, or less, than ‘afar’ to me.”
“Well, metaphorically speaking. It’s not like we’ve never gotten physical or anything—”
Vampire sex was probably all hot and dangerous and wild and animalistic and… “Don’t need to hear about that!”
“But,” he continued, “I would never dream that we could be emotionally close. She’s been alive since the Italian Renaissance. She was a model for Titian, for Christ’s sake.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Jessa said quietly.
Graf didn’t seem to care that she didn’t know, be cause he didn’t bother to explain it. “There’s no way that I could ever possess the depth of experience she has. So, I study her, spend time around her, and learn how to be a better vampire.”
“A better vampire.” Was there such a thing? “She teaches you how to kill more people?”
He shrugged guiltily, which was more of an answer to her question than he knew. “She blends in really well. She appears human, and it’s little tricks, like accidentally knocking over a glass or faking a headache—things you learn by watching, not just hearing about them. When I was new, that kind of knowledge saved my ass more than once.”
“And when were you new, exactly?” She almost didn’t want to know how old he was. “Like, are you two hundred years old, or did you become a vampire last week?”
“I was turned in 1967.” He switched the gun to his other shoulder. “It was funny, actually. One minute I’m living in Detroit, working in research and development at Uniroyal Tire, and the next I’m a vampire, traveling all over the world with this beautiful, sexy vampire who has people—I mean, vampires and humans both—fawning over her. Buying her presents, a villa in Spain, cars—anything she wanted, she could get by crooking her little finger.”
“She sounds amazing.” Jessa’s voice held a note of wistfulness that she couldn’t hide. Growing up in a small town, she’d had typical dreams of leaving and having the glamorous life he described. Minus the vampire part. Though her mother had done her best to impart feminist wisdom to her daughter, Jessa still had guilty daydreams about being able to get anything she wanted from a man just by being beautiful and sexy.
They walked in silence a few minutes, Graf no doubt reminiscing about his flashy vampire friends and their fleets of private jets they had sex all over. “So, what about you? Have any big plans that this whole ‘trapped like rats’ thing squashed?”
He couldn’t have put it more bluntly if he’d tried. This was the guy she had to get used to. Insensitive, rude, snobbish. And no wonder, if he thought the only value a person could have was what they could get other people to give to them. She’d be damned if she would share her private thoughts with him, now. “No.”
“Oh, come on. You had to have some desire to rise above the simple lives of all of these peasants.” He chuckled at his own joke. “There’s one of you in every town.”
“Well, we can’t all be Sophia,” she snapped.
He stopped walking. “Hey, don’t be like that. It’s a compliment. It means that I don’t think you’re on the same level as all these yahoos.”
She stopped, too, and turned. “These yahoos are the people I’ve been living through hell with for the past five years. What makes you think I think I’m any better than them?”
“You aren’t. But you’re more interesting.” He didn’t sound apologetic, or even like he’d realized he’d insulted her. “Something about their eyes. I didn’t notice it until I met Becky, but there’s this kind of dead-fish stare looking back at you with these people.”
“That’s fine,” she said, stomping forward. But she couldn’t help but feel validated by his assessment. She’d always secretly dreamed that, one day, she’d be more than anyone in this town could dream of being. But it was one thing to hear someone else disparage the people around her, and another thing entirely if she did it herself. Graf hadn’t earned the right to hate any of them. “Keep up. You’re the one with the superpowers.”
“And you’re turning your back to me. That means you must trust me,” he said cheerfully, suddenly at her side, though she hadn’t heard him move.
It unnerved her, this reminder of what he was, and what he was capable of. “You’re a vampire. If you wanted to kill me, even my gun wouldn’t be able to stop you, but remind me to pick it up at June’s tonight.”
“True. I could just drag you into the tall grass over there and tear your throat out with my teeth.”
It didn’t seem like he was trying to rattle her on purpose. The fact that he was saying this stuff accidentally made it worse. “Yup, I reckon you could.”
“But I won’t. Because I’m a man of my word.” He sounded awfully proud of himself. Like he deserved some kind of trophy for not killing her.
They walked in silence the rest of the way to June’s Place, but in the parking lot, she stopped him. “When we get inside, we’ve got to get permission from June to hold an auction tonight. Then, we announce it. Anyone who’s interested has two hours to round up what they want to trade, and to spread the word to their neighbors. Then they all convene back here, and hopefully we make some good trades.”
“So, what, we just wait around here all night?” He didn’t sound so cocky now. “Are we going to get back before sunup?”
Now it was her turn to shrug and act like his death was no big deal. “I don’t know. We might.”
“Well, I’m cutting out of here with enough time to get to shelter, whether you’re done bartering or not.” He nodded to the little red wagon she pulled. “And you can bring home as much as you can carry in that.”
“We won’t be able to bring everything home tonight.” She hoped. “Some people will drop stuff off tomorrow.”
He scoffed. “God, eBay is so much faster.”
June’s Place was busy tonight. Good, they needed it to be busy. Or, rather, she did. Jessa had no idea how she was going to feed her boarder, but she knew she had to get supplies for herself. She’d worry about him later. Maybe he’d shrivel up like a mummy she could just prop up in the corner, then chicken blood wouldn’t sound so bad to him.
“Uh-oh, here comes trouble,” June called, a wide smile on her face.
Jessa waded through the cluster of tables to the bar, where she stepped up on the tarnished brass rail and leaned over to speak with June more privately. “You up for an auction tonight?”
“Probably a good night for it.” There was a weary note to her voice as she continued. “Yeah, we can do that.”
Jessa turned to Graf. “Give me a boost.”
He complied, putting his hands around her waist and lifting her up to sit on the bar. She climbed to her feet, wobbled a little, and he caught her hand in his.
“Don’t fall,” he warned, naturally, as if he hadn’t just talked calmly about murdering her on the walk over. She snatched her hand back.
“Listen up, everybody,” June called, though most of the patrons had turned to see what crazy Jessa was doing standing on the bar in the first place.
Jessa took a deep breath. “This is my friend, Graf. He’s new in town.”
A murmur went around the room, the confirmation of the rumors most people had already heard and repeated to their neighbors.
June whistled to get their attention, and the bar fell silent. Jessa continued. “He’
s brought some stuff with him, and he’s looking to trade.”
“How’d he get here?” someone shouted.
June hollered over the sudden surge of raised voices. “He don’t know. If he don’t know, how would she?”
“Get out of here!” another patron yelled.
This was not going the way she had planned. People were suspicious. Why shouldn’t they be? But their fear and anger were making this an unstable situation, and there were no established rules for dealing with it.
To Jessa’s surprise, Graf hopped up on the bar next to her and called, “Hey!”
The crowd silenced, though they still looked like they’d rather kill him than listen to him. Graf looked around the room, body tense as though he realized this was a mistake, but when he spoke, he sounded confident. “I’m not here to cause any trouble. In fact, I’d rather not be here at all. For some reason, whatever keeps you guys trapped here chose to trap me, too. I would appreciate it if you would all just give me the benefit of the doubt. If I got in, there must be some way to get out, right?”
There was another uproar from the bar patrons, and Jessa held her breath. Getting out was something they never talked about. It was a sort of unwritten rule; no one had ever discussed it, but everyone knew to hold their peace where leaving Penance was concerned. Maybe it was the last thread that kept them all from unraveling, but they had to cling to whatever would keep them sane.
“Hey, hey!” June called over the noise, her usually good-natured tone giving way to something harsher and less patient. “Now, they come down here to trade with you. Either you want to, or you don’t, but I’m not keeping this bar open all damned night while you make up your minds.”
The people fell silent.
“That’s what I thought.” June nodded toward Jessa and Graf. “Now get off my bar. Everyone’s got two hours to get their shit together. We ain’t waiting for any of you, so get back quick as you can.”
“And spread the word,” Jessa called, over the sound of scraping chairs and scooting tables. “Let everybody know.”
“If I were them, I wouldn’t,” Graf said, hopping down and offering Jessa his hand. “I would want as few people to show up as possible, so I could get a better deal.”
“That’s the difference between you and us, then,” June said, wiping the place where Graf’s sneakers had been. “We don’t just look out for number one.”
Yes, we do, Jessa replied to herself, not that she would tell him that. She let Graf help her down and got away from him as fast as possible.
They took a table that had been abandoned. Only a few bodies remained, people who either didn’t have anything to trade or didn’t care to go to the trouble of participating, anyway.
Jessa groaned inwardly when she realized that one of those bodies was Becky. It helped a little to see Graf having the same reaction, a look of mingled horror and disgust that deepened as he realized Becky had gotten up from her table and was presently staggering in their direction.
Becky had never been a subtle person. She was clear as a pane of window glass when she was drunk, which she definitely was. She gripped the hem of her denim skirt at crotch level and yanked it down, her ankles crossing as she stumbled forward. “There’s my friend,” she called, laughing up a puff of smoke.
Graf looked distinctly uncomfortable. Good. For all the hell he’d put Jessa through for the past couple of days, he could have this little slice of hell for himself. “Uh-oh, looks like you’re friends now.”
He puffed out a breath and said, long and pinched, “Yeah.”
Becky pulled out a chair next to Graf and fixed on Jessa with narrowed eyes. “I went out to the service station. It doesn’t look like anything happened out there.”
“It’s completely torn down,” Graf said, calm and even.
“It probably just fell down,” Becky said with a roll of her eyes. She leaned closer to Graf. “What are you doing later?”
“Not getting shot by your redneck husband.” Graf pushed his chair back and leaned away from her. “You might want to ease up on the shine, if you don’t want your baby born with cirrhosis.”
Better to let white trash nature take its course, Jessa thought, and instantly heard her mother’s voice admonishing her for wishing Becky ill.
Becky, translating Graf’s statement into a joke the way drunks were prone to do, slapped his arm. “You’re not being very nice!”
He shrugged. “I’m not very nice.”
She was starting to catch on. Jessa could see it. She also knew what Becky was like when she felt insulted or rejected. Her self-confidence was mostly fake, and once she couldn’t fake it anymore her lack of self-esteem and her nasty temper became a volatile mix.
Becky laughed, a halting, disbelieving sound, and said, “The way you act, I’d think you don’t like me much.”
“Because I don’t,” Graf said with a weary sigh. “Just because I didn’t want you to get eaten by a monster doesn’t mean that I want to be BFFs, okay?”
Almost faster than Jessa could see, Becky grabbed one of the mason jars from the table, and threw the contents of it in Graf’s face. He blinked, then clapped his hands over his eyes, swearing.
“You don’t get to talk to me like that!” Becky shouted, listing on her feet as she stood.
“Chad, get your buddy’s wife out of here,” June called calmly over the laughter of the remaining patrons.
“That’s bullllschlit!” Becky slurred.
June flicked her long, brown braid over her shoulder and put up her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Them’s the rules, and you know it. Break a rule, get thrown out.”
Chad Brown stood up from his seat and, with a weary groan, said, “Come on, Becks, let’s get you home.”
Jessa didn’t see whether Becky put up a fight or not. She ran behind the bar, grabbed one of June’s bar towels, and wet it under the faucet. She didn’t know whether Graf was faking being in pain to keep from blowing his cover, but moonshine in the eyes couldn’t be a good feeling.
“Here.” She tried to move his hands, but he batted hers away. “Oh, stop it, you big baby.”
He dropped his hands. His eyes were puffy and red, which he probably couldn’t fake. She dabbed at his face with the towel and made a sympathetic hiss along with him as she pried the lid of one eye open.
“Why didn’t you duck or something?” she asked quietly, casting a quick glance to the other tables. They still laughed and jostled one another, retelling the tale of the most recent time Becky embarrassed herself. They weren’t interested in the cleanup.
Graf eyed them, too. “Because she was too quick.”
That was bull. She’d seen how fast he moved. He was certainly committed to appearing human. “Well, if you’re lucky, you won’t go blind.”
“Oh, good.” He watched her through bloodshot eyes as she wiped the rest of the alcohol off his face. “Are you being nice to me? Dare I ask, nurturing?”
She made a face. “I guess I am. Probably because we’re in a bar full of assholes, and you seem less ob noxious by comparison.”
“Except for June,” he said with a nod toward the bar.
“Well, yeah. Except for June.”
They spent the rest of their wait mostly in silence. Jessa wasn’t a big fan of small talk, and Graf seemed incapable of making any effort toward it. It wasn’t a fully comfortable silence, but it was at least a mutually agreed upon one.
Folks started trickling in about an hour later, with their items for trade. The rules of the auction were simple, and everyone knew them, so when it kicked off, it went quick and neat. Jessa was pretty happy with most of the trades she got.
“Hey, I can make pasta out of that,” she’d said excitedly when Graf’s leather jacket went for a sack of flour. “God, I haven’t had pasta in so long.”
“Doesn’t it get cold here in the winter?” he’d grumbled, but he’d been easy enough to ignore. In fact, he’d been remarkably easygoing.
“Bar
needs fresh music,” she’d said, admiring her newly acquired MP3 player, and Jessa was glad. The same old CDs on the jukebox were wearing on her nerves.
After the auction was finished and Jessa’s sense of prolonged death by starvation had eased, she relaxed. Even had a second drink. All while Graf sat, quiet for one blessed moment, watching her.
“What?” she finally asked, too aware of his scrutiny.
He leaned on the table, elbow propped up, chin on his hand. “You’re like a different person.”
“I’m a little drunk.” She took another swallow from her cup. “You’d better get a drink, or they’ll get suspicious.”
“Not if you stop saying things like ‘they’ll get suspicious.’ Now they probably wonder what they should be suspicious of.” He pried the glass from her fingers. “You won’t fit in that wagon, so we better leave while you can still walk.”
“Yes, I can still walk,” she insisted, before remembering that he hadn’t asked her a question.
As he led her toward the door, his hand at the small of her back—people would talk about that—the other pulling the wagon loaded down with supplies, Chad staggered in. His hat was missing, and his shirt was torn.
“It almost got me!” he shouted, his lips trembling. “It almost got me!”
Nine
The scent of blood was all over the guy who’d burst through the door.
Graf’s first instinct was, of course, to eat him. His second instinct was to cower and cover his eyes. Like the smell would disappear if he couldn’t see it? Didn’t make any sense. The coppery tang would invade his nostrils no matter what he did, forcing the part of him that was more monster than man into hunger overdrive. Oh, who was he kidding? He was always more monster than man.
“Sick at the sight of blood?” June’s arms were folded across her chest, and she was smiling at Graf during her good-natured teasing. But her eyes weren’t smiling. They were accusing.
There was no way she could possibly know. Humans weren’t that smart. They believed what they were taught to believe, that there was no such thing as monsters, that vampires were bogeymen for nightmares and Halloween.
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