“I don’t know. I thought the turn of phrase sounded good.”
“A little too good.” She takes a small sip of the wine.
“There’s a lot to be grateful for.” I flex my arm. “Check out these triceps. I never have to hit the gym again.”
“You never hit the gym your whole life.”
“And now I can stop feeling bad about it.” I draw out a wisp of hair. “My highlights will take longer to fade, since I’ll be out of the sun, and since I don’t need to wash my hair as often.”
“Ciara—”
“Though when I do touch them up, the chemical smell will be nasty.”
“Ciara—”
“But I can just stuff cotton up my nose.”
“Ciara, you don’t have to pretend with me. I’m selfishly thrilled you’re a vampire, because otherwise you’d be dead—”
“Another bonus.”
“—but you can always tell me when it totally blows. When you can’t tell Shane or Regina or any of the others because you worry they’ll think you’re weak and whiny, you can tell me.”
My smile can show only a fraction of my gratitude. “That means a lot.”
“You can also bite me.”
My hand squeezes the wineglass stem so hard it shatters. “Ack!” Reflexes kick in, and my other hand grabs the glass’s bowl before it spills. “Hey, this could be the next big thing—stemless glassware. If people can’t put down their cocktails, they’ll drink faster. It’ll be all the rage at the trendiest bars.”
She laughs. “I’ll put a set on our registry tonight, for those people who wait until the wedding day to buy a gift.”
I slap my forehead. “I forgot to get one. Will you take a check?”
“You have a good excuse. And yes, we’ll take a check.” She swings her foot over her knee. “Just not at the same time as you bite me. That would be prostitutey.”
“We’re not discussing that.”
“You need blood, and you need it from someone you trust, someone who won’t make you feel like a dog begging for scraps.”
“But that’s not your job.”
“Please let me do this.” She wipes her nose and sniffles. “I don’t know how I could live without my best friend. I hyperventilate every time I think about you dying, whether it’s three weeks ago or three weeks from now. The only thing that keeps me sane is the thought of helping you live.”
“Since you put it that way… okay. Thank you.” Between Lori and Jeremy, I now have two relatively normal donors. Too bad I’ll need at least a half dozen more, some of whom are bound to be weird.
“Condition.” She holds up a finger. “David is absolutely, one thousand percent off-limits.”
“I know that.” I shift my weight, the sofa cushion suddenly uncomfortable. “Of course I know that.”
“Unless your life depends on it, according to a certifiably neutral party, not your oh-my-God-I’ll-die-if-I-don’t-drink-him gut feeling.”
I change the subject. “So how was the food tonight at the rehearsal dinner? It all tasted like Play-Doh to me.”
“Thanks for faking it so well. And the food sucked. You weren’t missing much.” She looks away, and I know she’s lying for my sake.
I raise my stemless glass. “At least I can still taste drinks. Although that cosmo was horrid. I didn’t realize I couldn’t taste juice, since it’s just mashed-up fruit.”
“Ew, so all you tasted was the vodka and triple sec? Wait, isn’t liquor made from food?”
“The fermenting changes it. Same with the caffeine in coffee.”
She lifts her glass. “To chemistry.”
We clink and drink as Shane’s voice comes over the ceiling speaker.
“It’s twelve minutes before the hour, here at 94.3 WVMP, the Lifeblood of Rock ’n’ Roll. That was ‘Until the End of the World,’ one of the less exhaustively played tracks off U2’s Achtung Baby. I’ve got a special request coming up after the commercial break, something I think you’ll all enjoy.”
Lori’s eyes glint as they turn upward. “My mom told me Shane has the sexiest voice she’s ever heard. She couldn’t believe how hot he is in real life, too. Not a face made for radio, she says.”
“How old is your mom?”
“Fifty-two.”
I sigh. “She’s six years closer to his age than I am.”
“Only in petty human years.” She cocks her head. “She’s right about the voice. It’s magical.”
“Magical enough to bring me back from the dead.”
She shares my grin, but then hers fades. “Wait a minute. That’s it!”
“That’s what?”
“You said you heard his voice when you were in heaven.”
“The white place. Whatever.”
“And then in the cemetery with the zombie cheerleaders, you kept feeling foggy.”
“Because of Petrea’s spell.”
“But every time Shane spoke to you, it lifted the fog.”
“Yeah.” I stretch the word into two syllables.
“And in the church.” Lori sets down her glass and flaps her hands. “Oh my God! When you were under Petrea’s spell, Shane snapped you out.” She scoots over and grabs my wrist. “His voice was the antidote, Ciara. His voice was life.”
I stare into her fiery eyes and try to laugh. “You’re such a romantic. It’s really cute.”
“This explains everything.”
“I’ve never heard of a voice having magic.”
“Maybe it’s never happened before. And maybe it’ll never happen again, now that the spell died with Petrea.” She tightens her grip on my arm. “Listen. What if when Shane called you back the first time, it wasn’t really magic but just you wanting to be with him more than you wanted to be in heaven. And then—boom!” She smacks her hands together. “Heaven fused the magic with his voice.”
I reach for her wineglass. “You are officially cut off. Tell me you have a designated driver.”
“It’s not as left field as it sounds. The blood magic mutated that virus and turned you and Monroe and the zombies into puppets. So why couldn’t blood magic also plant something inside you while you were dead—after Monroe drank your blood, thus not affecting him—something that would protect you against the bad part. It brought balance.”
Balance is a concept I can deal with. Every reaction having an equal and opposite reaction. “Go on.”
“Remember,” she continues, “your blood gave Monroe the disease that made him vulnerable, but it also gave him a way to save himself. Every disease holds the key to its own cure.”
My brain hurts just thinking about it. “I guess if it were possible in any universe, it would happen in—in that place. Heaven or whatever.”
“Heaven or whatever. HOW for short.”
The door to the hallway opens, and Jeremy slinks into the lounge.
“Shane kicked me out of the studio,” he says to me. “My shift starts in seven minutes.”
“Why did he do that?”
“Shh.” He points to the ceiling speaker. “He said to tell you to shut up and listen.”
I look at Lori, who curls her lips under her teeth as if to keep from laughing. She just shrugs in response to my questioning look.
Jeremy turns a knob near the light switch to raise the volume, then crosses his arms and leans back against the wall.
The commercial ends, and Shane’s voice returns.
“Special treat for you vampires and other night owls. At least, I hope it’ll be a treat. Performing an acoustic number here in our studio tonight is, well, me. Not that special, I guess. I wrote this song for my girlfriend and played it before asking her to marry me a few weeks ago.”
My heartbeat stutters. He is not doing this.
“She said yes. We were very happy for a couple days, and then some stuff happened. Some of it was me, some of it was—okay, most of it was me. Long story short, we got unengaged, if that’s the word.”
“Disengaged,” I whisper, th
en cover my mouth at my compulsive correcting.
“Anyway, she gave me back the ring, which I have sitting here on the studio table in front of me. A ring without a finger is pathetic, so I’m hoping she’ll fill it again. But first. This.”
A series of guitar chords fills the lounge. I put my hands to my chest, feeling the vibrations deep within.
Then his voice comes, and I realize Lori was right. He was my Orpheus, leading me out of the underworld again and again. No matter how far I stepped into the land of the dead, he always found me.
But she was also wrong. Petrea’s spell was broken, but not Shane’s. Even now, life flows through me stronger and faster at the sound of his words of promise, words that mean more than ever on this side of death.
I stand slowly, my legs steady. Jeremy opens the door to the hallway for me. I look down at Lori, who jumps up to throw her arms around my neck.
“See you tomorrow night—I mean, tonight.” She squeezes me, not realizing how close I just came to biting her. “Don’t you two stay up all day and fall asleep at my wedding.”
“Promise.” I extract myself from her embrace and move away quickly, out into the hallway. The door closes.
In front of me, the glass wall of the studio muffles the sound of Shane’s music. But he spies me through the window and tilts his head toward the studio door as he sings.
I creep inside, using all my stealth to avoid making noise that the microphone could catch.
He starts the third and final verse, and I realize that something sounds different. As he describes the Ciara of the future, the notes become infused with a new pain, a new uncertainty—and, to battle it all, a new courage.
The final chorus strides forth, the wood of the guitar resonating in Shane’s hands. The floor seems to tremble at each chord’s impact. As he sings the last couplet, his eyes close and his lip curls in a snarl of determination.
Fate doesn’t stand a chance against this guy.
When the last note fades, he opens his eyes, meeting my gaze without fear. He pulls the microphone a few inches closer.
“Will you marry me, Ciara?”
As I step forward to the mike, I try to think of a clever answer to make this night memorable for his listeners.
But all that comes out is, “I will marry you, Shane.”
Grinning like a fool, he reaches to take back the mike. I snatch it out of his reach and recite his trademark sign-off line: “Good morning, and good night.”
Shane hits the button for the final track of the show. Accompanied by the opening violin strains of the Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” he takes the ring from the table and slips it on my finger.
This time it fits perfectly. I realize why he waited two weeks to ask me again—the ring was at the jeweler’s, getting resized.
I take the guitar out of his lap and replace it with myself. We kiss and sway to the slow-building, mesmerizing tune, one that I’m positive didn’t come out until after Shane died.
Jeremy takes Shane’s place in the studio, giving us a calm high five on our way out. We collect Dexter and our bags, then head for the parking lot.
Outside, the seemingly endless April drizzle has taken a slight pause, and even the stars are out. By this late hour, summer constellations are already rising. I shiver in my coat, dreading the long days ahead, when the glowing tans of humans will mock my new existence.
As Shane unlocks the car and gets Dexter settled in the backseat, I gaze up at the stars. In two hours the sky will change from midnight blue to periwinkle, and the stars will fade one by one.
I remind myself that they don’t really vanish. They’re even more forever than we are, which is somehow comforting. And like us, they’ll be back again. Tonight.
“Did you change the song you wrote for me?” I ask Shane. “It sounded new, but maybe it was just the venue.”
“Nope.” He draws me close, sweeping my hair off my cheek with one hand and lifting my chin with the other. In his eyes I see forever. And for the first time, he sees it in mine.
“Same song,” he whispers, on the verge of a kiss. “Different key.”
Here is a sneak preview of
Ciara’s next adventure, coming from
Pocket Books in 2011!
I avoid mirrors these days—not because they don’t show my reflection, but because they do.
Three weeks ago, my skin and hair were full of warmth and imperfections. My fiancé Shane said I was like “walking sunshine.” Now my highlights are ice blond and my face, a flawless porcelain. Even the blue in my eyes is purer, sharper.
All of which is great in theory—far be it for me to bitch about the increase in gorgeosity. Problem is, I chose this golden-yellow maid-of-honor gown back when I was a “summer.” Back when I was human.
I tug the dress’s back zipper up as far as I can reach, then leave the mansion’s powder room to enter the parlor.
Lori is sitting at the vanity, a light blue smock over her ivory wedding gown. She’s too busy examining her mascara in the magnifying mirror to look up when I enter. But Regina and Maggie check me out from the upholstered sofa.
“How do I look?” I ask them. “Be honest.”
“Um.” Maggie brushes an auburn curl off her forehead. “Well… I love what you did with your hair.”
“You look dead.” Regina flips her silver lighter between the long crimson nails that match her bridesmaid dress. “And not in a good way.”
I turn my back. “Shut up and zip me.”
After she lifts the zipper and fastens the hook, Regina’s fingertips drift across my bare shoulders. “You’re cold,” she whispers. “Time for a snack.”
“I don’t want to have to brush my teeth again.”
“You’d rather get the munchies in the middle of the wedding?”
“You guys don’t have to whisper,” Maggie says. “I know the score.” She raises fingers to her lips to form fangs.
“My mom could come in.” Lori’s words are slurred by her application of lipstick. “Ciara, go drink. And you look fine.”
I blow her an air kiss, which she catches with a flash of French manicure, and pick up my small thermos cooler from behind the ottoman. Lori told her family that I’m a new diabetic who needs frequent snacks to maintain my blood sugar level. Which is true, substituting the word “vampire” for “diabetic” and subtracting the word “sugar.”
In the bathroom, I face away from the gilded mirror as I slurp a quick meal, then clean the blood off my teeth for what feels like the fortieth time tonight. The brush doesn’t snag on my incisors—a sign that the fangs are behaving themselves.
Unless I’m starving, I only go into grrr mode around people who have been or would like to be bitten. Which is roughly two percent of the population, but some days feels like a hundred and two percent of my acquaintances—including my best friend Lori and my runner-up best friend (and boss) David, who are getting married in twenty minutes.
A shrill female voice comes from the parlor, hurting my ears even through the powder room door. I reenter the room, though I’d rather escape.
Mrs. Koski is seated at the coffee table, where the contents of Lori’s bridal bag are arrayed in neat lines. As she inserts each item back into her daughter’s ivory lace purse, she makes a check on a list. Regina stands alone at the stone fireplace, watching in silence.
I join her and whisper, “Didn’t she already do that?”
“Twice. But Maggie interrupted her, so she had to start over. After she made the girl cry. Lori took Maggie to help her put on her veil.”
“I was supposed to do the veil. I’m the worst maid of honor ever.”
“All set!” Mrs. Koski snaps shut the purse. Her smile fades when she sees me. “Oh dear. That’s not your best color, is it?”
“Not anymore,” I say through gritted teeth.
“But Lori chose the style and let you girls pick your own colors. That way everyone’s complexion would be flattered.” She rises on her six-in
ch heels, her silver sheath making her look like an aging ice queen from a Euro-pop video. “You could’ve worn Tina’s blue dress.”
A shiver jolts my body at the sound of that name. To cover my reaction, I rub the back of my neck, pretending it’s tickled by a stray hair or the clasp of my necklace.
“Tina’s a lot shorter than me.” Plus it would’ve been tacky to wear her dress after I’d murdered her father.
It was self-defense, I remind myself. Besides, Tina Petrea illegally raised the zombie who spread the disease that took my life. Even if her detainment awaiting a Control tribunal—at which I testify next week—hadn’t conflicted with the wedding, her necromancy alone justified kicking her out of the bridal party. The wedding magazines probably all agree on that.
I edge past Mrs. Koski toward the window, telling myself that it’s her cloud of perfume closing up my throat and not the memory of Colonel Petrea’s eyes as his life leaked out, or the memory of sunken black pools, like twin tar pits, in a zombie kindergartner’s face.
With a groan of painted wood, the window slides upward at my touch. I rest my forehead against the cool pane of glass. Outside, rain rattles on the back porch’s corrugated roof, almost drowning out my mind’s replay of cracking bones, snapping tendons, and the slurp of steel through a child’s rotten flesh.
The soundtrack of my nightmares.
“Ciara.”
I turn to see Shane. He’s a long, tall drink of black—tuxedo, shirt, and tie—with his head brushing the frame of the parlor’s open double doors.
I thought he’d look awkward in formal wear, what with his terminal grunge-boy slouch and unkempt light brown hair half obscuring his pale blue, couldn’t-give-a-damn eyes. He hasn’t touched a comb since 1991.
But rather than taming him, the tux only accentuates his wildness.
“Wow,” Regina says to him. “Haven’t seen you in one of those since the night we met.”
Mrs. Koski makes a purring noise. “Dibs on first dance with the best man.” She sniffs at me. “After you, of course.”
He gives them a nod without taking his eyes off me. “How are you feeling?”
Bring On the Night Page 33
