When the Steelers quarterback escapes a near - sack to throw a long touchdown, David stomps around the family room, clutching his head. When it happens again a few minutes later, after another Ravens fumble, he sinks onto the couch next to me and reaches for the pizza. He consumes it like a death row inmate eating his last meal.
I pat David’s shoulder. “It’s just one game.”
“It’s not just the game.” He chews slowly, then swallows. “Shane and I have an ongoing bet. Last year, I was not a gracious winner.”
As the game progresses, the room gets very quiet, except for Dexter’s snores. David’s posture slumps further with each Ravens fumble and Steelers touchdown.
My attention drifts away from the television toward the other side of the family room, where ceiling - high bookshelves face a pair of elegant chairs near the fireplace. It’s like a cozy, Masterpiece Theatre –type library, a different world from the decades - old couch and electronics extravaganza of the TV area where we’re sitting now.
It also looks like a room in a museum—preserved and untouched. I think I see a layer of dust on the chairs’ smooth leather arms. Maybe David and Elizabeth used to sit up nights in front of the fire, reading or listening to music, sharing something besides a parasite - host relationship.
“You still miss her, don’t you?”
David jerks his chin in response to my question. His brows crinkle, as if he’s about to ask me “Who?” but then he shakes his head. The gesture looks more like an admission than a denial.
“It wasn’t so bad at first. I guess I was numb from the shock.” He takes a long sip of beer. “Now, though, I can’t stop noticing the holes. It’s like one of those blankets, what do you call them?”
“Huh?”
“With the holes in them.” He shrugs. “The ones that grandmothers make.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Never mind.” He smoothes back his straight dark hair, which has grown almost past his ears. “It’s not as if Elizabeth and I had a future.”
“But you were sleeping together, right?”
“No. I mean, sometimes we would . . . do things.” He coughs and looks away.
I shift my legs under the dead weight of Dexter’s sleeping head, trying not to imagine Elizabeth and David “doing things.” Blood tastes better during a donor’s orgasm, or so I’m told.
“But no,” he continues, “we physically couldn’t have sex.”
I had no idea. “Was it an injury from your days in the Control?”
“Huh?” His face reddens, and he scratches the back of his neck. “No, I’m fine. Everything’s working, last I checked.”
I feel my own skin heat, but confusion trumps embarrassment. “Then why couldn’t you have sex?”
David hesitates, then half turns to me. “You know how vampires are stronger than humans? Muscle - wise?”
“Sure, but isn’t that an enhancement?”
“In some ways. But for a woman, when all her, uh, muscles, sort of contract, they can exert enough pressure to, well—”
I gasp. “No.”
“Yeah.”
Maybe we’re not talking about the same thing. Part of me wants to turn the conversation to the weather, but the skies are clear with seasonal temperatures. Nothing to discuss.
“So you’re saying.” I speak slowly and avoid eye contact. “While a human guy is penetrating a female vampire, she could accidentally—or on purpose, I guess—perform a sort of penisectomy?”
David cringes. “Yep.”
“Wow.” I rotate my beer bottle in my hands. “Then female vampires are celibate?” No wonder Regina’s so cranky.
“No. Male vampires are, uh, sturdy enough to handle it.”
We stare at the TV. Dexter has stopped snoring, accentuating the awkward silence. I wish the game would come back on to distract us, but it’s just Peyton Manning appearing in his thirtieth commercial of the night. “So are you seeing anyone now?”
“No. Other than Elizabeth, I haven’t had a serious relationship since college.”
“That’s what, eleven years?”
“Twelve years, since I joined the Control. When you’re a member of a clandestine paranormal paramilitary organization, it’s hard to get close to anyone. They can never find out what you really do, though some agents tell their families they work for the CIA.”
“But you left the Control ten years ago, after Elizabeth . . .” I don’t finish the sentence. He’s more than a bit sensitive about his former fiancée’s fang - out.
“Right, but then we started a radio station with a bunch of vampires. Hard to explain to a potential girlfriend why the windows in my office are boarded up.”
“Not to mention the routine puncture wounds.”
His mouth drops open, and he stares at me. “How did you know I was feeding her?”
“I guessed.” I stroke the jagged scar that lumps the fur over Dexter’s right eye. “The way you and Elizabeth acted around each other, plus the fact that she glowed like a power plant even though she claimed she only drank bank blood, which Shane says is nutritionally deficient.”
“I see.” David rubs the side of his neck. “Yes, as long as I was . . . sustaining Elizabeth, it was hard to have a steady relationship with another woman.”
Convenient. I examine his posture, which, despite his professions of lingering sadness, has been straighter and stronger these last few months. Elizabeth’s demise, while causing difficulties for the station, has had its benefits. David’s emotional liberation, for one. Me getting to drive her Mercedes, wear her designer suits, and control her bank accounts, for another.
I study his face, wondering when someone last touched those cheeks or kissed those lips. I realize it was probably August second, and that someone was me. Or rather, me as Elizabeth, making out with David for the sake of a phony detective report. But also to give him a way to say good - bye.
Sometimes I wonder how much of the woman he kissed was Elizabeth and how much was me. I don’t let myself wonder long, because then I have to ask how much of that Me was Elizabeth and how much of that Me was me.
“I have homework.” I set my empty beer bottle on the table. “Dexter, I’m getting up.”
He grunts as I lift his head long enough to scoot out from under it, then stretches his legs and closes his eyes again. He’s the most phlegmatic vampire I’ve ever known.
I head for the stairs, but David’s voice stops me at the bottom.
“Afghans.”
I turn to look at him. “What?”
“That’s what those blankets are called. The ones with the holes.”
A sudden green - and - yellow image comes to mind. “My mother made one once. I never saw the point in those things. They don’t keep you warm at all.”
He hesitates, then finally says, “No, they don’t.” His tone is soft and sad.
I turn away before I can see the weight of grief settle over his face. The fact that he thinks of life without Elizabeth as an Afghan blanket makes my heart twitch and flop inside my chest. It’s only supposed to do that for one man at a time.
My cell phone rings in my pocket. Caller ID says it’s from the station.
“Hello?”
“What are you doing?”
I recognize Regina’s flat, clipped voice. “I was watching football with David, but—”
“American football?”
“Huh?”
“Or soccer.”
“NFL.”
She gives a quick huff. “Shane says there’s still a D.C. hard- core scene.”
“Uh, yeah.” My head spins from her switch in subject from sports to punk rock.
“When he says ‘still,’ does he mean in the nineties or now?”
“Now, I think.”
“Okay. Pick me up in half an hour.”
She wants to go to a club with me? We never—and I mean never—hang out. “Can I take a rain check?”
“No, it has to be
tonight.”
“But I have homework.”
“Throw it onto the fire.”
“What?”
“You have twenty - nine minutes. Don’t dress like an ass-hole.”
“Wow, you’re like a punk Barbie doll,” Regina says when she gets in my car at the station. Before I can answer, she slides a cassette into the tape deck of Elizabeth’s—I mean, my Mercedes. It starts playing in the middle of a song with sawing guitars and a driving backbeat.
“Minor Threat!” she yells over the noise.
“Oh!” I shout back.
Those are the last words we speak on the way to our nation’s capital (well, my nation—as far as I know, Regina’s still Canadian). She doesn’t sing along to the music, just rests her cheek on her fist, with her elbow on the passenger - side window frame. Her head nods faintly, and her lips move almost imperceptibly, but her black - lined eyes stare straight through the windshield. She doesn’t look at me, and I sense that I’m nothing more than a convenient chauffeur.
Maybe she’s disappointed in the low ridicule potential of my outfit. She clearly forgot that as a con artist, I can fit in anywhere. My pink - and - black belly shirt says BIG FUCKING DEAL, and the matching skull - bedecked skirt and leggings are ripped in all the right places. My thrift shop black combat boots came prescuffed, but I added the pink laces, which complement the ten Hello Kitty barrettes in my dark blond hair. The ensemble is designed to confuse anyone who might mess with me. They’d figure no one would dress that cute who couldn’t defend herself. Psychology.
Even though it’s Monday, and the band is D - list at best, the line outside the northeast D.C. club known as Outlander is a block long, consisting of people dressed in enough leather to build an entire herd of cows.
“Don’t worry,” Regina says in response to my sigh of dismay. “Pull up to the front.”
I do as she says, though I don’t see a sign for valet parking. She rolls down the window as I ease the car to a stop along the curb. Immediately two bouncers hurry over and confer with her, pointing down the street. I can’t hear them over the blast of the stereo, and I sense that lowering the volume would lose me a finger.
When they retreat, practically bowing and scraping before her, she says, “Take the next two rights for the VIP parking lot.”
“They know you here?”
She finally turns to look at me. “Don’t act so fucking shocked. You’re the one who made me famous.”
After we park, the beefiest bouncer yet lets us in a back door. His open leather vest displays an anatomically correct tattoo of a heart on his chest. I bet Jeremy would like that one.
Regina leads me down a long hallway lit by a dim red light. When I start to lag behind, she grabs my hand and inserts it into the crook of her elbow.
“Do not let go,” she says. “I am your Seeing Eye dog.”
“I’m not blind.”
“Not yet.” She shoves open the door to the club.
The sound waves hit me so hard, I expect my skin to peel off from the guitar riffs. The heavy thump of the bass will probably cause internal bleeding by the end of the night.
Regina drags me toward the bar. On the way, I peer around while trying to look like I’ve been there a hundred times. It’s like walking through a sewer system, and not just because of the smell and the fact that there’s enough sweat to sail a small craft upon. Pipes and beams form the walls and ceiling in a monochrome tapestry. The black metal décor is broken up only by an occasional accent of gray.
There’s no mosh pit here, per se, because the entire floor is filled with crashing, slamming bodies. I wonder if they give out free ice packs and suture kits to patrons as they exit.
The bar area isn’t much calmer, it turns out, and if it weren’t for Regina weaving us through the crowd, with a combination of brute strength and sheer scaring - the - shit - out - of - people, I’d soon be two - dimensional.
We reach the bar, where a pair of shot glasses await us, filled to the rim with what I assume is whiskey. I pick up my glass and turn around to see all eyes on Regina.
Averted eyes, that is. The jostling patrons watch her over one another’s shoulders, and in the mirror shards glued to the wall. It’s as if she’s the sun, a threat to their retinas. Unlike Shane, whose fans crowd his lanky frame, searching for a piece of him to possess, Regina has an aura that keeps most people at a distance.
Except for one.
“Gina!”
A short, muscular punk dude bounces over to us. His Liberty - spiked candy - apple red hair provides a splash of color against the black and gray background.
He slides his arm over Regina’s shoulder and gives her cheek a loud, smacking kiss. I step back to avoid getting hit by whatever limb she’s going to tear off in response.
Instead, she hops on her toes like a little girl. “Colin, you wanker! Where’ve you been the last million years?”
“Right ‘ere under your nose.” He tweaks the flap of skin between her nostrils, then turns his gaze on me.
Suddenly I realize why she lets him touch her. He’s a vampire as sure as the sky is up.
“ ‘ello, luv,” he says, and my feet feel nailed to the floor. Part of my mind notes that he’s objectively unattractive—weak chin, crooked teeth, low forehead. But the light in his deep green eyes seems to coat my skin with thousands of tiny steel filings. One blink could switch on the magnet and draw me into his orbit.
“Regina, who’s the tasty biscuit?” he asks her without taking his eyes off me.
“Off - limits. She’s a coworker.”
Colin sighs in the direction of my skirt hem, then turns to Regina. “I was about to step out for a fag.” He points his thumb at a red Exit sign.
“Right. Fucking D.C. smoking ban.” She yanks me along as they proceed to the door. “The disease is spreading to Maryland in a few months.”
“Christ. Well, there’s always Virginia, but the clubs out there are crap.” He loops an arm around her neck, bringing his elbow up to my nose. I notice that despite the heat, neither of them are sweating.
The door leads to a dark, trash - filled alley, and I balk at the threshold.
Regina tugs my arm. “Believe me, you’re safer out here with us.”
Colin chuckles. “Said the spider to the fly.”
“It’s really cold out.” I pull back. “Think I’ll stay inside.”
Regina doesn’t let go, but speaks to me in a low voice. “You know what Shane means to me. I know what you mean to him. You think I’d let you get hurt and have him hate me forever?”
I look at Colin, who’s unwinding the little gold plastic strip from a fresh red pack of cigarettes. Dunhills, Regina’s favorite brand.
“Make up your bleedin’ mind,” he says. “We’ve got business to discuss.”
Regina jerks her head to look at him. “We do?”
He looks past me into the club as he lights a cigarette. “Either way, you’re prey. At least out here you’re with ones who can resist.” He shakes out the match and grins. “Probably.”
Choosing the devil I know (and one I just met) over the ones I don’t know, I step into the alley and shut the door behind me. Colin’s smile disappears. He picks up the wooden wedge meant to hold the door open and jams it underneath so no one can come out.
“Colin, you’re such a drama queen.” Regina leans against the brick wall and lights her own cigarette. “What’s the big—”
“Listen to me, pet.” He seizes Regina’s shoulders. “You’re not safe here.”
“From who?”
He glances at me.
“Just say it,” Regina says. “Don’t worry about her.”
His gaze races over the wall above Regina, as if he’s trying to come up with the right words. “There’s talk of revenge, for Sara.”
Her face flashes vulnerable for half a second, then she scowls. “He’s been saying that for two years. It’s bollocks. And what’s that got to do with this place?” She barks a laugh. �
�Can you imagine him here at Outlander? He wouldn’t get two steps past the door.”
“ ‘e’s part of something bigger. And it’s not what you think. It’s something new.” He shifts his weight, still clutching her shoulders. “No, something old. But growing. And this place, they watch it for vampires.”
Regina blinks rapidly, glances at me, then stares up at Colin. “It was an accident.”
“I know, luv.” He kisses her forehead softly. “I know,” he whispers against her skin. “But you can’t be here, tonight of all nights.” Then he turns to me. “Take her home. Now.”
“Fucking hell.” Regina wrenches away from him and starts down the alley. “Come on, Ciara. No point in staying if Mr. Buzzkill wants to ruin my night.”
I hurry after her, fishing in my purse for my keys. Halfway down the alley, I turn to say good - bye to Colin.
Behind him, the door bursts open. The wooden wedge flies across the alley and hits the soot - stained brick wall.
“Run!” he hollers to us.
I obey, grabbing Regina’s arm as I pass her. Her eyes go wide with panic, but I don’t let her slow down.
“Idiot,” she mutters, even as she starts to grin.
As we turn the corner, I look back to see Colin facing down three stake - wielding human men, each of whom is twice his size.
All the way to the parking lot, I can hear his laughter.
8
Light My Fire
Tuesday morning finds me snarling with fatigue and frustration. On the way home last night, Regina refused to tell me anything about Sara and the mysterious vendetta. The only information she offered, when asked if Colin was her maker, were two words: “He wishes.”
At the station, Franklin is grumpier than ever.
“Mad about the game?” I ask him as I slump behind my desk with my third cup of coffee.
“Of course,” he says, “but don’t tell Shane I care. I don’t want any part of this rivalry.”
“What’s the big deal?” Compared to the episode at Out-lander, a football feud seems quaint. “It’s just sports.”
“I know that. You know that. But to David and Shane, it’s war.”
Bad to the Bone Page 10
