Yeah.
It was like that.
CHAPTER
17
“Shhhhhhhhhh,” Nina hissed at Marty who was fussing with her ponytail from behind. “It’s fine. Leave me the fuck alone already. Stop princess-orizing me to death and be quiet.”
Marty threw up her hands. “Fine, far be it from me to want you to be perfect on your wedding day.”
She pulled up short, each of the women behind her knocking into each other. “Would you shut up?” Nina barked.
“Why do we have to be quiet?” Wanda whispered.
“Because Greg has this old guy, a neighbor who suspects—”
Marty tapped her on the shoulder. “You mean him?”
Jim Finch popped out of the bushes by the front door in a firestorm of limbs, waving a bottle around. He wore a dark green bathrobe this time, and his lined face held awe and fear. The clap of his slip-ons sounded like hard thumps of a hammer as he pounded down the decorative pavement at them.
Fuuuuuuck. Nina took a firm stance a few safe feet away from him, planting her legs apart and giving him the scariest Nina look she had in her arsenal. She shielded Marty and Wanda with the spread of her arms. “Jim, go home!”
“You’re one of them!” he yelled so loud porch bulbs around the neighborhood began to flash on like blinking Christmas tree lights. “You’re the devil!”
Nina caught Marty’s mouth drop open from the corner of her eye. “Uhhhhh, trouble?”
“Holy water,” Nina whispered harshly.
Wanda squeaked, “Hoo, boy.”
Nina rocked from one foot to the other, trying to dodge him to get to the front door. Time was at a premium here and a run-in with Jim was the last thing she needed right now. “Go home, Jim!”
But Jim had grown braver since her last encounter with him. The bottle he held had a chain wrapped around its neck, and he swung it like it was a pair of nunchakus. The air snapping around it made short whipping sounds.
Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck. His rapid approach wasn’t unsteady this time, and if he nailed her with that holy water, she was done for, and that meant so was Greg.
Fear and crisis seemed to be a motivating factor when it came to her incisors making an appearance. Nina felt the stretch of her gums as they elongated and decided it was now or never.
She opened her mouth wide, hissing at Jim, flashing her teeth and narrowing her eyes with menace.
Jim’s shriek and his sudden plunge backward into the bushes made Marty and Wanda gasp, running toward him just as Svetlanna appeared at the door. “Nina?”
Nina pushed past Marty and Wanda who’d dragged Jim behind the bushes, laying him on the ground, then rushed to Nina’s side.
Nina searched Svetlanna’s eyes. “Where is he?”
Her eyes looked tired, and her face was drawn. “He’s in his room. What’s going on?” She scanned Nina from head to toe, shaking her head, disbelief evident in her gaze. “Oh, Nina. You’re beautiful…”
“Yeah? Thanks, and I hafta say, I don’t know how you do it all the time. My feet are killing me, and this fuc—um, stupid makeup feels like goo all over my face. My hair is like an Aqua Net festival gone awry, and I can’t breathe in this contraption I’m told is a bra. But forget me, is the heifer here yet?”
“Lisanne?”
“Yeah, her.”
“No,” she spat, distaste written all over her face. “What are you doing here?”
“What I do best. Bully people into doing what I want them to do.”
Svetlanna threw her arms around Nina, sobbing. “Thank you. Thank you,” she whispered earnestly.
“So where is my unwilling groom again?”
“In his room—you have to hurry, time’s running out. It’s already eleven thirty.”
Nina took the stairs two at a time, silently hoping she wouldn’t trip on them in Wanda’s shoes, then raced down the hall to Greg’s bedroom.
She burst through the door, scanning the room for Greg. It was empty. But the heavy drapes at his window rustled, and someone stepped out from behind them.
“Hello, Nina,” a vaguely familiar voice said with cheer in the greeting.
When Nina was able to make the connection from voice to face, she was at first confused, and then she understood. Whatever deemed it possible for her to get the big picture, deemed it should be so at the absolute worst moment.
Go figure.
Wee doggie—she was fucked.
LISANNE appeared out of thin air while the girls waited downstairs for Nina. Her smile was sly, her posture confident when she strolled through the wide foyer.
“Omigod, are you Lisanne? The Lisanne?” Marty threw her head back and laughed, strolling over to the infuriated Lisanne and eyed her outfit with contempt. “Tell me something, would you?”
Lisanne cocked an eyebrow in question.
Marty scanned her dress with disdain. “What—out of all the colors on a color wheel—made you choose that? It’s so wrong for you on every color level that exists. I mean, really, who picks your clothes?’
Lisanne’s face went hard. “Who is this?” she asked Svetlanna.
Svetlanna had to find a way to stall her. If she got to Greg before Nina did, she’d overpower her and for all the havoc Lisanne had wreaked, she’d have a wooden stake in her heart before she let that happen. But Marty didn’t give her time to answer Lisanne.
Marty stuck her face in Lisanne’s and smiled brazenly. “I’m the bitch that’s going to make things very difficult for you, and I warn you, if I break a nail doing it—I’ll get überupset and then, well, then you have to die.”
NINA felt the rise of fear in her chest, and a chill of foreboding swept along her spine in a cold blast. Why had the mystery vamp shown up tonight, of all nights? “What are you doing here?”
He smiled, that same pleasant grin that had left her creeped out the last time she’d seen it at the bar. “We have some things to discuss.”
Discuss. Everyone was always discussing things in this crazy clan. Talk, talk, talk. Maybe they all should stop discussing shit. “I’m not discussing jack shit with you, you dumb ass. Where have you been? I went to the place you said you’d meet me, and you never showed up, you asshole. You’ve called me at least three times since this began, but you don’t leave messages with your number. That’s very, very irritating. And you were full of shit anyway. There is no turning me back. So what’s your beef with me?”
He took his hands from the deep pockets of a long, brown trench coat and folded them together. “Your boyfriend showed up that night. I told you not to bring anyone with you, didn’t I?” His voice had risen an octave, sending off alarms and whistles in Nina’s head.
“Oh, puuhllease. I didn’t bring him with me. He followed me.”
“It won’t matter in the end, Nina.”
The end? Huh. Was there going to be an end she was sorely unaware of?
He wasn’t as collected as he’d been a moment ago. His eyes were shifty, and his movements agitated. He slunk closer, advancing on her in measured, precise steps. The threat in his eyes, that evil glint, had her head spinning.
Nina backed away without thinking, her mind racing to find a way out of the room. Her hands touched the far wall from behind her, and that was when she realized she’d made a grave mistake.
Never, ever let the enemy back you into a corner, fuckwit. Don’t you remember what happened with Atwood Goldstein in sixth grade? They’d been fighting over her lunch. Atwood, in all of his stupidity, had foolishly thought he could take away her—Nina Blackman’s lunch—and not have the snot beat out of him. She’d had a reputation at Sternson Middle School for making boys cry, but every once in awhile some hero came along who thought he could throw down with her just because she wore the label “girl.” She’d been about to show Atwood who could take who, when he’d cornered her. She’d been too cocky, and with the incentive of the crowd, she’d grown even more confident, forgetting her position.
That was whe
n she ended up against the chain link fence with chocolate pudding all over her head. Atwood had outsmarted her, and this weird-ass mofo was doing the same thing. He’d used her surprise to his advantage.
Her mystery vamp was up in her face in a matter of seconds, just like Atwood had been, leaning into her and pressing something with a sharp tip to her abdomen. His flat features still held the smile he wore, but his eyes scared the bejesus out of her. They were glazed and shiny, wild and unafraid.
Nina struggled to push him away, but he was rock-solid. “What the hell do you want from me? I don’t even know who you are!”
“Here’s the problem in a nutshell. I know who you are. Greg created you. If he mates with you tonight, that leaves me next in line to mate with Lisanne, and that’s just not going to happen. I’ll never mate with that hag.” His eyes slanted, changing colors. “If you’re out of the picture, Greg has to mate with Lisanne, and I’m safe.”
Oh, if only he knew how completely delusional he was. She struggled to tell him he was anything but safe, because no way was Greg mating with Lisanne. “Wait a minute. Who said I was mating with Greg?”
He grinned. “I saw you together, and I heard you with your friends tonight.”
She was stunned. “You were spying on me?”
His grin widened. “If you’d taken Greg’s advice and cultivated your magic, you’d have smelled me watching you all this time. But it doesn’t matter now, Nina.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. Hold on one fucking second. Did he intend to kill her? Her? Whoa, whoa, whoa. “So I’m going to take a stab here and guess I’m on your list of things to eliminate.”
“You got it.”
Gnarly. Without allowing herself to think, Nina shoved him so hard, whatever he had in his hand ripped her dress, the sharp tear of it sending a spike of anger, that despite her position, made her react. “You ripped my goddamn dress! This isn’t even mine, you fucktard. How am I going to give this back to my friend like this?”
His surprise at her outburst lasted but a millisecond before he was moving in on her again, and she was finally able to identify what he had in his hand.
A wooden stake.
Ya know, this here was a fucking predicament if there ever was one. Had she spent a whole lot less time kvetching about being a freakin’ vampire and far more time honing her superpowers, she might have stood a chance at taking this guy—but seeing as she’d been such a whiner—it wasn’t gonna happen today.
Good planning.
He brought his forearm up under her chin, muscling her back against the wall. The power of the impact on her back made her head slam against the hard surface.
“Owwwwwwwwwww—that hurt, you freak! Get the hell off me.” Nina shoved him again, but this time he’d dug his heels into the thick carpeting, and trying to move him turned into trying to move Mt. Olympus. Her chin was high on his forearm, her legs nearly immobile. She’d never been stupid enough to kid herself into thinking she had the upper hand when she didn’t. So it was time to find a different route. If she stalled him, maybe someone would wonder where she was. Her eyes caught the alarm on Greg’s nightstand. It read eleven forty-one. “Wait!”
He stopped putting pressure on her chest for a short moment. “I’m going to kill you, and you want me to wait?”
“Yes! Yes. I have vital information.” She grasped desperately at the last of her imaginary straws.
He cocked his head. “Do you? Do share.”
“Greg won’t mate with me.” Crap that hurt to admit over and over. It was like some kind of broken record and karma kept playing it to remind her where she stood.
She saw him stop to think about that, watching the wheels grind in his head. “I don’t believe you.” He raised the stake, holding it at an angle, aimed at where her heart once beat.
Nina pressed her hands against his chest, clinging to his trench coat. “No, no, wait! He won’t and, P.S., if you were a better spy, you’d have heard us the other night. He hates Lisanne—hates her guts, and he said he’d rather turn to dust than spend an eternity with her.” Nina nodded as a follow-up. “He did, I swear.”
For the first time, his smile faded.
“Don’t you see? It won’t matter if you off me. You’ll still have to mate with Lisanne.” So hah!
He shook his head as though he were clearing cobwebs, tightening his arm across her throat. “I don’t believe you. That just leaves me next in line to mate. Greg wants you, I know he does. He told Clayton.”
Shut. Up.
She’d hang on to that for ammunition if she ever found out where the fuck Greg was. What the hell was he doing? “Well, I got some news for you. He sure didn’t tell me that. So I say we let me go, and we’ll go talk to Greg, and get this all cleared up. Whaddya say?”
“Noooooooooooo!” he roared into her face, raising the stake high above his head. His voice bordered on hysteria now, and if her gut was right, her eternity was going to be cut short like real soon.
“Waitttttttttttttt!” Nina shoved at him again, lifting her knee to knock him in the crotch, but he was prepared, grabbing her by the material at the neck of her dress and whipping her to the floor. He was on her in the blink of an eye, while she thrashed beneath him with a totally hopeless effort. “Stoppppp! Stopstopstopstop!”
“Would you shut up? Jesus, Greg’s right, you’re a loud mouth.”
“Wait,” she rasped. “I have another quessssstion!” Her hysteria was rising now, her legs aching from digging her heeled feet into the floor, her fingers throbbing from gripping the lapels of his coat.
“This better be your last,” he threatened, tightening his hold on the stake.
Her lips moved fast, spitting out words without thinking. “What’s your name? I don’t even know your name, and I think it sorta sucks that you’re going to whack me and I don’t even know your name. Don’t you think everyone should know the name of the person who kills them? It’s only fair. You know my name, but I don’t know yours. I mean, I’m going to die here. Die! That’s bad, like really bad. Death—sooooo final, ya know? Like over, done, gone. Have some mercy here, huh? It would be cruel to kill me and not tell me who you are—”
He clamped a hand over her mouth. Clearly he planned to indulge her. “It’s—”
“Melvin!” someone thundered from above them.
Greg! Oh, thank God it was Greg.
And Melvin? What the fuck kind of name was that for a vampire?
Hands tore Melvin from her prone body, throwing him across the room in such a spectacular feat of fast-forward motion, Nina might have missed it if she hadn’t been scrambling to get back on her feet.
The impact of his body slamming against the wall ripped through the room. The imprint of his body left a dent in the plaster. Sheetrock rained in dusty bits everywhere, falling to rest starkly against the burgundy backdrop of the carpet.
Greg went after him, tearing across the room in a flash of muscle and blurred flesh. His words came out in a roaring demand. “Get up, Melvin!”
Melvin cringed in the corner, covering his head with his hands and pulling his knees up tight to his body, whimpering.
“Get up, you piece of shit, and tell me what the hell you think you’re doing threatening my woman!” Greg hovered over Melvin, his jaw clamped tight, his fists clenched.
Nina’s eyebrows rose. His woman, eh? She tapped him on the shoulder. “Um, question?”
Greg craned his neck around, his mouth a single line of tension. “Now?”
“Uh, yeah.”
He rolled his eyes. “What is it, Nina?”
“Your woman?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Um, another question?”
“Whaaat?”
“Wasn’t it you who just a couple of days ago said,” she lowered her voice a couple of octaves, “I can’t let you mate with me, Nina. You don’t know me at all. I won’t let you give up your freedom for me.”
“Yes, that was me.”
> “Then how can I be your woman?”
“Nina?”
“Greg?”
“Remember how I also told you, you have a big mouth and sometimes you don’t know when to keep it shut?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do that for me now, would you, honey?”
She made a zipping motion with her fingers across her mouth. “This is me being quiet.”
He smiled his gratitude, then returned his attention to Melvin, who whimpered when Greg dragged him up to his level. “Wanna tell me what you were doing?”
The friendly grin he typically wore was long gone, replaced by frightened eyes as wide as double moons and quivering cheeks. “I won’t mate with Lisanne,” he sobbed. “If you don’t, I have to. Do you know what she’s like? She’s despi-pii-cab-l-le…” he stuttered with hysterically fractured syllables.
Shoot. Maybe Nina hadn’t given Lisanne enough credit. She was bringing vampires who were hundreds of years old to their knees.
Greg took Melvin by the neck and shook him hard. “If you ever come near Nina or anyone in my family again, I will kill you. Got that?”
Melvin nodded with a violent bob of his head. “Y-eeee-ssss.”
Greg seethed his next words. “Call yourself lucky I don’t bring the clan together for a good old-fashioned shunning.”
Melvin shook, head to toe, his body trembling.
Dayum. What was this shunning?
“Get out, Melvin, and never darken my doorstep again.” Greg dropped him like so much trash with the flick of his wrist.
Melvin scrunched his eyes shut, his crumpled form fading out with a shimmer of his brown trench coat.
Nina turned to Greg, shaken but as determined as ever. “You know, you people are like a day in the psych ward. Fun, fun, fun.”
Greg’s lips lifted upward, but just barely.
And here they were at the crux of this whole matter.
“Where were you? For God’s sake, you were going to turn to dust all alone?” She heard the desperation in her voice, and she didn’t much dig it, but Jesus, the drama since she’d met him was going to drive her out of her mind.
Accidentally Dead Page 29
