Accidentally Dead, Again

by Dakota Cassidy

  “So at least two weeks’ recuperation?” Sam teased.

  “And a few hours at a good day spa with an extra-long massage.”

  Sam gazed down at her, his chocolaty eyes intense, his scent warm and inviting. “I’m sorry, Phoebe. None of this would have happened if not for me.”

  Phoebe’s lips pursed. “I’m trying to be the bigger person and not blame. But if forced to call names, none of this would have happened if not for Raging Bull.”

  “Oh, stop trying to butter me the fuck up by calling me nice things behind my back and get out in the living room,” Nina cackled in her ear, making her jump. Nina stopped short when her gaze went to the mirror. “Holy shit. Wouldn’t it just figure that out of the two of you, Glamour Puss Barbie can still see her reflection? This is officially most-us fucked-upp-ed-us. Somethin’ just ain’t sittin’ right. You two are like outsider vampire.”

  Sam barked a laugh—one Phoebe didn’t share. “You’re so inclusive, Nina. It makes me squishy on the inside.”

  “Yeah? Well, save that shit for later. Right now, Phoebe’s BFF found a piece of paper with information on it or some shit when he was sweeping up the dead chick. He’s pretty productive in his heightened state of freak. I should bring him back to the castle and let him dust the shit out of my torture rack. All those damned little nails are a bitch to clean around.”

  Phoebe’s eyes narrowed in disgust at how cavalier she was being, but she pushed her way past Nina who stomped off to help Wanda in the kitchen and headed toward the living room, where Mark had indeed donned his apron, feather duster, and Swiffer. “Mark?”

  He held up a hand for dramatic pause, hitching his jaw. “Do. Not. I’m just not ready.” He ran the Swiffer along the underside of the chest they used as a coffee table with a frantic swipe.

  “We have to talk sometime,” she coaxed, smiling sweetly at him.

  Mark threw up his middle finger at her. “Like. Hell. We don’t ever have to talk about vampires and blood and fangs and women who cremate on command on my Jennifer Convertible!”

  Phoebe winced, deciding on another tack. “You know what this is like?”

  “A Wes Craven movie?” he squeaked.

  “It’s like an adventure, Mark. Remember how just the other day we were sitting around over chocolatinis all wishing for something to jump-start the humdrum rut we’re in?”

  Mark planted his hands on his Dockers-clad hips, his eyes wide. “Jump-start? This was more like being attached to a live electrical wire and jumping into the pool at the Y. When I said we needed a break from our routine, I was thinking more along the lines of, I dunno … spelunking or ceramic classes, Phoebe. Not a dead woman and Emo-licious in there!”

  “You know what else this is like?”

  His finger shot up to stab at the air between them. “Do not give me one of your crazy soap opera references. This isn’t like anything on Chances or Connections or even the thank-God-someone-put-it-out-of-its-long-overdue-misery Edge of Eternity.”

  He was right. Even the Edge of Eternity couldn’t top this. “Did Wanda and Nina have the chance to explain this to you?”

  His head bobbed vigorously. “Oh, they explained. Yes, they did. I heard all about their accidents and puppy dogs, dentists, exotic cats, and trips to hell. I learned cute new catchphrases I’m sure would be trending topics for crazy on Twitter given an opportunity. I heard, miss. Oh, yes, I did!”

  She shot him a mournful glance, clasping her hands together in front of her. “So you get that I’m a vampire now? That, among other things, I’ll never eat tuna tartar again?”

  “Don’t be such a silly. You’ll be too busy drinking blood and reading minds to partake in my insignificant tuna tartar.” Mark swatted at her with the feather duster, his words squeaky and watery.

  Overwhelmed, Phoebe threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing his soft middle tight. She pressed her ear to his heartbeat, steady and sure. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen or to get you involved. I’m still not even sure how it happened. I’ll make the trauma up to you somehow. Maybe a facial or a massage? Wait. I know. I’ll take bathroom duty for the next year.”

  Mark sighed against the top of her head. “How about a good brain bleach? You know, to wipe the god-awful images from my head?”

  There was no making up for the kind of trauma she’d inflicted on him—even if she had no way of knowing it was going to happen to begin with. “I’ll think of something. Promise. But until then, I really need you to stick by me this time. Now more than ever.”

  His grating sigh penetrated her eardrum, but he dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. Where else would I stick if not to you?” Mark patted her on the back and deliberately set her aside. “Now get off of me and look at this piece of paper I found over by the door where Vampirella was. She must have had it on her. It has O-Tech’s letterhead on it.” He pulled out a wrinkled dirty note from the pocket of his pants, palming it to her. “Go decipher it with that hunk of a man and let me process. And by process I mean someone’s going to have their eye shadows alphabetized when all’s said and done tonight.”

  Phoebe let her shoulders relax for a moment, relieved. Mark was organizing. A sure sign he was officially on the road to recovery.

  “And take this.” He handed her one of Optimus’s empty cans of cat food with a pink Tupperware top. “It’s the woman’s remains. She deserves a decent burial. Whoever—whatever she is—was. Oh, dear God,” he whimpered, promptly returning to his cleaning spree.

  “I’ll take that,” Sam said from behind her, making heated chills climb her spine just by the sound of his voice. “It should be up to me to spread her ashes. Whatever her reasons, she came to find me, and I can’t help but think she knew what her fate was. She was warning us.”

  She handed him the can, avoiding his fingers because they were probably sources of yet more tingles of awareness. “You’re very honorable.” And hot. Sexual napalm hot.

  “She was trying to help us, I think. It’s the least I can do.”

  “And she was our only connection to what happened with this new unexplored vampire power I seem to have acquired. A power we don’t know whether you have or not, unless you’re feeling adventurous and want to give teleportation a whirl.”

  Sam frowned, running his fingers over the dark stubble on his chin. His long, lean, well-manicured fingers. “It looks that way.”

  “Which means I should never think about a psyche ward again,” she joked. She had to or she’d cry. Or dry heave. Whatever.

  Taking her by the shoulders, Sam held her eyes with his. His gaze was serious and troubled. But that wasn’t what garnered most of her attention. His touch was, and it left her unnerved. Just as she’d suspected it would. “Phoebe, look. I promise you, I’ll figure this out. This mess is my fault, and I’ll clean it up.”

  “Will you change before you do? I imagine that dress could be uncomfortable to clean anything in. Especially a mess as big as the one we’re in.”

  His response was a chuckle, deep and rich, leaving a warm, resonant ring in her ears. “I promise to find some man-pants soon.”

  “I really thought you were a cross-dresser,” she responded by way of an apology for labeling him.

  Sam smirked, the dimple in his chin lickable. “In hindsight, I almost wish that was the case. But alas, I’m just a secure guy who isn’t afraid to go for the laugh. This all happened at a Halloween party.”

  “I heard. That woman was your date.”

  “One I can’t remember much about other than the way she looked.”

  “One-night stands are like that. Nameless. But I imagine it wasn’t her name that attracted you to her.” A stab of unwarranted, totally unexplained jealousy pinged her gut. It deserved absolutely no attention for its pettiness.

  Sam averted his gaze and focused on a spot just above her shoulder. “So you know about that night, then?”

  Phoebe flapped her hands di
smissively, then clasped her ponytail, dragging her fingers through it. “No details. And no judgments. We all get lonely.”

  Sam paused for a moment, his eyes scanning her face. “Lonely is clearly a dangerous thing these days.”

  “It’s not just the clap the singles of the world have to contend with anymore,” Phoebe agreed wryly, then handed him the slip of paper, forcing her focus to remain on answers, not Sam’s bedroom bunny. “Mark found this when he was stress cleaning. She must have dropped it on her way in when she collapsed. It’s from O-Tech.”

  Sam held it up to the light and read it with a frown, the lines on his wide forehead deepening.

  Fear came back in a jolt to her gut. “What does it say?”

  “The letters TDB. It’s my letterhead. It has my name on it, but it’s not my handwriting.” Sam held it up for her to see.

  “What do you think TDB stands for?”

  Sam scratched his head with lean fingers. “I have no clue.”

  Phoebe noted the scrawl of the mysterious initials was large and flowery, maybe even feminine. “What do you do at O-Tech?”

  He gazed right into her eyes so intently Phoebe blinked. “I’m one of a team of scientists there. I’m an entomologist in research and development. O-Tech deals in pest control—among other things.”

  “Bugs?”

  “Many winged things. Yes.”

  “You really are a nerd.”

  “Nerds are hot. Just ask Chuck.”

  Her grin was impish and easy. Too easy. She straightened, giving him an arrogant lift of her chin. “Are you flirting by way of extolling your virtues?”

  Sam pursed his lips comically and winked. “I’m not sure. Clearly, if that woman was any indication, I’m not much for the foreplay of flirting. I prefer to tap right into the hot and sweaty.”

  Phoebe let her eyes fall to the floor, shifting on her feet to avoid the discomfort the woman’s memory brought. “Well, that hasty, life-altering decision aside, we have trouble. So we need to figure this out, because I don’t ever want to do what I did at Nina’s again without maybe some warning—or classes on how to, at the very least, land in the middle of Bergdorf Goodman’s. I know my way around there.”

  Sam grinned, devilish and amused. “Could save a bundle on airfare.”

  She snorted, twisting her hair between her fingers. “Is that your shot at optimism?”

  “I try to keep my glass half full.”

  Phoebe fought to keep herself from drowning in the deep color of his eyes and stay focused. “So the woman …”

  “Yeah. Wow.”

  “You didn’t know her?”

  “Never saw her before in my life.” His eyes shifted away from hers.

  She noted his flicker of embarrassment in the way he looked up and away from her. “Was it a work-related party? Do entomologists party? I’m having trouble with that image.”

  “Obviously, we should stick to bugs, because when you let us loose, we party—big. And it’s not something I do often.”

  “Party?” Phoebe hedged.

  “That or indulge in one-night stands. Which technically, I don’t think actually occurred, but it’s all really hazy.”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Phoebe couldn’t help but smile. “I’m so relieved.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “That it wasn’t a one-night stand?”

  “No. That you don’t party much. Late nights and booze are bad for your skin. You have nice skin.” She paused, mortified she’d given him her assessment on his skin out loud. God. “So the woman …”

  “The woman. Right. Yes, the party was work related, we had it right inside O-Tech’s cafeteria, and there were a lot of people that I work with there. We bug dudes tend to run in stimulating packs of boring bug intellect.”

  “So she could have been from O-Tech?”

  “O-Tech’s a big company. She could have been anyone from the mailroom on up. Or not.”

  “Whose party was it?”

  “My friend Joel organized it.”

  “Another bug guy?”

  “No. He’s from Human Resources at O-Tech. And before you ask, I texted him about the guest list. No guest list. It was sort of a last-minute thrown-together thing, according to Joel. And no one saw me leave with mystery woman, either. Or even remembers seeing a woman matching that description.”

  “So she just popped up out of thin air? Wait. Forget I said that. She probably did. Oh, Jesus.” The reality of their situation sank back in.

  “So that brings us back to what she said,” Sam offered, though his reminder was steeped in hesitation.

  Phoebe flapped a hand, pushing herself to stick to the facts and not speculate too much or she’d lose her mind. “Right. The dying thing. She said it wouldn’t be long before we died. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to end up lunch for a whirring Dyson. That was brutal. No disrespect intended.”

  Sam shook his head. “Yeah. I don’t get it. She vanished right before our eyes. If what Wanda and Nina told us, and the mythology of vampires is almost all true like they said, I was under the impression that vampires live forever unless they’re staked through the heart with wood or their heads are chopped off.”

  “Yeah. They do,” Nina stated, breezing in from the kitchen where she and Wanda had been contacting their vampire connections. “Vampires also turn to dust after five hundred years unless they mate for life. Good times, right?”

  Phoebe grimaced, wrinkling her nose. “Golden. I have a little less than five hundred years to find the man of my dreams. That should be plenty of time to get things in order for my dream nuptials.” And find the right man. The kind who wouldn’t walk out on her at the first sign of trouble. Especially if the trouble was big.

  Sam’s look was of surprise. “Wait. Aren’t you married, Nina?”

  Nina nodded, her normally scowling face turned warm with a grin. “Yep.”

  “So you’re mated for life?” Sam asked.

  “For-ev-ah, yo. That’s like rule number nine hundred in Vampires for Dummies. There’s no divorce in Vampire-landia, kiddies. So when you get to pickin’ a life partner—pick wisely, my friend, and don’t wait until you’re four hundred and ninety-nine and three-quarters to do it.”

  “You speak from experience?” Sam inquired, his eyes wide.

  “Oh, you bet she does,” Wanda called from the kitchen with a laugh.

  Phoebe’s brow furrowed. “So wait. Then maybe Sam’s girlfriend turned to dust because she was five hundred and had no mate? That makes sense, right? Maybe she meant we’d die if we didn’t find mates? Or maybe she bit Sam as an eleventh-hour kind of damn-I’d-better-get-to-gettin’-on-this-mate thing? You know, like an act of desperation?”

  Nina shook her head, jamming her hands into the front pocket of her hoodie. “If that was the case, she kind of jumped the fucking warning gun, don’t you think? You guys have four hundred and ninety-nine years to go. And she apologized for biting Sam. She said it was an accident and she said she wanted to help. I didn’t read any malice in that head of hers. Just panic and fear. Not to mention, what happened on that couch isn’t your typical vampire death. I’ve heard about the turning to dust thing, and it isn’t like that shit we saw tonight. The five hundred gig isn’t pretty, but it’s not like what just went down with all that flesh-eating crap. That was some kind of heinous.”

  Everyone grew somber again at the memory of the woman’s screams.

  “She also mentioned O-Tech,” Wanda said, weaving her way past Nina, cell phone in hand. “And she had that O-Tech memo with Sam’s name on it. So if she didn’t work there, and we have no way of identifying her to see if she did, my next thought is, what does a vampire have to do with a pest-control manufacturer and how did she get her hands on Sam’s personal notepad? Did you have it with you at the party? In your purse, maybe? That dress you’ve got on doesn’t look like it leaves much room for a Thin Mint let alone a whole piece of paper.”

  “Sarcasm. More, plea
se,” Sam responded dryly, cocking his eyebrow.

  Wanda smiled in return. “Curtsy. So I’m guessing you don’t carry around your memo pad with you?”

  Sam’s face went hard. “Nope. It never leaves my desk because I don’t really use it. I use my phone to keep memos, reminders, et cetera. I can’t read my own handwriting and I have no clue what the letters TDB mean. But I didn’t write that.”

  “Yay,” Wanda retorted with sarcasm, clapping her hands together. “Square one it is, then.”

  Nina’s expression took a surprising turn when she gave them all a somber gaze, jamming her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “Well, we’d better figure out square two, because if what that broad said was true, Sammy and Fashion Spree Barbie are gonna bite it. Soon.”

  Phoebe paid no mind to Nina’s snarky reference to her. Instead, she found herself focusing on how she’d jumped from the frying pan smack into the fire. A couple of days ago, her life hadn’t exactly been coming up roses, but it hadn’t entailed a violent death the likes of which she’d seen on her sofa. Not one she’d remember anyway.

  Everyone grew silent again, finding places to seat themselves other than the couch. Phoebe perched on the edge of an end table, listening to the hum of the vacuum Mark had broken out while she rethought her wish to be cremated.

  When her cell phone rang to the tune of “Forget You,” a ringtone she’d specifically purchased to signal an unwanted caller, Phoebe froze. Because it signaled the one and only unwanted caller she had.

  A glance at the clock said it was almost two in the morning. What could he possibly want at this hour?

  She made a dash for her purse in the kitchen where Nina had dropped it, a dash that left her body trying to catch up with the rest of her. She crashed into the chairs surrounding their kitchen dinette like a bowling ball and just managed to catch herself before knocking the entire table over.