“Well, yeah,” he said, sounding weirdly apologetic. “I mean, I was running down the beach here—I’ve just gotta get down to two-twenty-five, y’know, and lay off the Cheez E Brats—anyway, I was running and tripped over something, and I thought it was a piece of driftwood but it was your foot, so I started to unbury you and then I couldn’t find a pulse so I called the cops on my cell phone. You didn’t look, y’know, grody or anything. In fact, for a corpse, you looked pretty good.”
He’s an idiot. Perfect. She finished coughing. It was amazing—even if you didn’t have to breathe, sand got everywhere. Every time she moved, more of it trickled into her underpants. “How long ago did you call?”
“Uh . . . coupla minutes . . . look, are you sure you’re all right? The sun’s just about down, and it’s getting kinda chilly, even for June—”
“The sun set,” she said, wiping her mouth with her forearm, then grimacing at the way the sand stuck to her lips—worse than ChapStick!—“at seven fifty-six P.M. It’s technically dark.”
“Well, uh, okay, but—”
“So I have time for a snack before the authorities arrive.”
“Okay. Like, um, you want an Orange Julius or something? My treat.”
“I know.” She leaned toward him—easy enough, he was hovering over her like a—heh, heh—grave robber—and grabbed him. He was wearing a tan t-shirt and green swimming trunks and beach shoes; the t-shirt shredded under her preternatural strength, the beach shoes went flying, and then she sank her fangs into his jugular.
“Ow! Hey!” Outraged, his big hands came up to push her away. “That’s—are you fucking biting me? That’s so weird! And kinky! Now cut it out! Ahhhh. No, I mean it . . . stop. Don’t! Don’t stop!” He grabbed her head, she hung on like a leech, and they grappled in the sand for a few seconds. She could feel his throat working beneath her lips as he babbled. “Seriously, this is so bogus! I save a dead chick—sort of—and she chews on me? You just wait ’til the cops get here, chickie, they’ll, like, commit you or something. Ha!”
She broke away—something she had never done before; in fact, as early as a year ago, she wouldn’t have been able to break off until her thirst had been satisfied—and said, trying not to whine, “Are you going to talk through this whole thing?”
“What, I’m supposed to sit here and think about England?”
“They usually start screaming about now, and then they faint.”
“Well, forget it.” He jerked a thumb at himself. “Daniel Harris don’t faint, baby. No matter how much you chew on him!”
She stared at him. “Daniel Harris?”
“Yup. And I don’t scream, either, except for that one time I saw a really grody spider fall into the toilet when I was taking a whiz, talk about a shocker! I didn’t know pee could—y’know—crawl back up if you were surprised, but I’m here to tell you—”
“Daniel Harris, St. Olaf college?”
“Uh . . . yeah.” He peered at her. “Do I know you, Weird Babe?”
She sighed. “I’m Andrea Mercer.”
“Andrea . . . Andrea . . .”
“From Carleton College. Right across the river from St. Olaf. I transferred to Olaf my sophomore year. We were in Calc II, Psychology, and Sociology I together.”
“Andrea . . .”
“You copied off my notes most of our senior year in college.”
“Ohhhh! Andrea!”
“And,” she continued, “you told me if I shaved my armpits I’d be, like, almost pretty ’n’ stuff.”
He snapped his fingers. “Right! Andrea! Got it!”
“Swell,” she said dully. Unburied by Daniel “Big Cock” Harris, who of course didn’t remember Andrea-the-Mouse. She’d chomped on him, drank his blood, and she was still only a minor annoyance in his life.
She was surprised she hadn’t recognized him earlier—it had only been seven years, and he still looked much the same. Same surfer-boy, tanned, blond good looks. A little broader through the shoulders, a little longer through the legs. His faded blue eyes—the color of old denim—were still friendly, the expression still low-key. He looked exactly like what he was: a handsome, mild, life of the party fella who never ever had trouble getting a date.
She’d even asked him out once, their junior year, but . . .
He cleared his throat. “Uh, Andrea . . . the reason I didn’t recognize you right away—”
“I know why,” she said thinly, climbing to her feet and brushing sand off her jeans.
“—um—aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
“Of course I’m dead, you idiot. But that’s not why you didn’t recognize me.”
She walked away, hearing faint sirens in the distance.
Chapter 2
“ANDREA? Andrea! Hey! Wait up!”
“What?” she growled, not turning around. A chill breeze was picking up off the lake, making her hurry. Of course, she was always cold, so what did a breeze matter? “Go away.” I’m still hungry.
“So, you’re dead and hanging around beaches and biting guys now? I thought you were an Economics major.”
She almost laughed. Ah, the days when her biggest problem was figuring out the effect of interest rates on capital investment flows . . . or was it the other way around? “I was. Then I had an accident. Now I’m here.”
He jogged up beside her. “Hey, listen. About before. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Sure I remember you. You were—you were really cute.”
“You’re an idiot,” she replied. “It’s all right, I’m leaving. You don’t have to talk to me anymore.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, completely ignoring her broad hint. “I want to. So, like, what happened to you?”
She nearly tripped over her own feet. “Why in the world do you care?”
“Well . . . doesn’t look to me like you’re having much fun these days.”
“What a tragedy,” she mocked.
“Well . . . yeah.”
To Daniel Harris, she realized, it probably was. The man had always been waiting for a party to happen. At college he’d been infamous for the fact that the lights were never out in his room.
“You wouldn’t believe me anyway,” she said, weakening.
“Uh . . . you bit me, remember? And I was a lifeguard back home. You really didn’t—don’t—have a pulse. I mean, when you sat up I tried to fool myself like maybe I’d made a mistake, but how hard is it to check a pulse? So are you—okay, this is gonna sound really dumb—like something out of the movies—but are you—don’t laugh, now—”
“Yes. I’m a vampire.”
He digested that in silence. They had reached the parking lot, and she shook more sand out of her hair.
“Well, how come?”
“How come? It’s not like being a Republican, moron. I didn’t exactly have a choice.”
“You want to go get a drink? Talk about it?”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“Well . . . not like that,” he said uneasily, fingering his already-fading bite mark. “Like at a bar.”
“No.” But that was a lie. She was sorely tempted. And never mind her long-dead crush on Daniel Harris . . . the cold fact was, she was lonely. At times, almost unbearably so. It was nice—if weird—to run into a familiar face.
And he was pleasant. Even when he turned girls down for dates, he’d always been nice about it. One of those guys who honestly had no idea how popular and sought-after they really were.
“Aw, c’mon,” he was coaxing. “Look, my car’s right over there. We can head over to Joe’s, grab a drink. Catch up.”
“Catch up,” she repeated. It was absurd and sad at the same side.
“Come on, Alison.”
“Andrea.”
“Right, Andrea.”
“For crying out loud.” But when he unlocked the passenger side of the silver Intrepid and held the door for her, she climbed in.
Chapter 3
“I’LL have a Bud,” Dan
iel said. Huge surprise. He turned to her. “Can you—uh—”
“White wine.” She sighed. “Anything from 1985.”
“So you can drink stuff that isn’t blood?” he asked after the waitress swivel-hipped away.
“Yes. I can drink anything, it just doesn’t—ah—satisfy me.”
“Oh. So, how’d you become a vampire?”
She shrugged.
“Oh, come on. I really want to know! I mean, this is just so cool!”
“Yes, being undead is a laugh a minute. I can’t think why I didn’t do it before.”
“Come on, it can’t be all bad. I bet you’re really superstrong, right? And fast?”
She shrugged.
“And you can prob’ly see in the dark like a cat. And you’ve got that whole sex appeal thing going.”
She stared at him. “I’m not sexy.”
“No, you weren’t sexy. Now you are. I mean, come on, you think any girl dug up on the beach is gonna be cute? But you were seriously cute. I was scared when you sat up but I was, y’know, kinda glad, too.”
“Oh.” That was . . . that was actually kind of sweet. Gross, but sweet. “Well, thank you.”
“So how’d you do it?” He leaned forward eagerly. “Was it hard? Did it hurt? Did it take a long time?”
“It was very hard, it hurt tremendously, and it took no time at all.”
“Oh.” Slightly crestfallen, he didn’t say anything until the waitress put down their drinks and left. “Really bad, huh?”
“Really very unbelievably bad.” She stared moodily into her white wine. A nineteen eighty-four Riesling, dammit.
“You want to talk about it? Sometimes it helps to talk about it. Also, you’ve got sand in your eyebrows.”
She shook her head impatiently and watched as a tiny grain of sand flew away from her table, arched a few feet over, and landed in the precisely parted hair of the woman sitting at the table beside them. Why, he’s right, she thought, uncharacteristically amused. I do see in the dark like a cat.
“It’s kind of a long story,” she warned him.
“Hey, I got time. I wasn’t leaving for home until tomorrow morning.”
“Home? Minnesota, you mean?”
“Sure, I still live in St. Paul.”
“What do you do?”
“Oh . . .” He shrugged sheepishly. “Nothin’. I came into my trust fund a couple of years ago, so mostly I play golf n’ stuff. I’m only in town for a wedding. You remember Mike Freeborg? Played shortstop? He got married yesterday.”
“Fascinating. So . . . you’re driving back? Flying?”
“Driving. It’s not far . . . six, maybe seven hours.”
“Hmmm.”
“Why?”
Why? Oh, no big deal . . . I just need to be in Minneapolis soon to pay homage to the new vampire queen. And you just might be my means, Daniel Harris.
She supposed she could play Scheherazade for him. Keep him hooked on her grisly, yet interesting (for a non-vampire, that was) story, all the way to the Twin Cities. Then she could pay homage to the new queen, and see what happened from there.
The new queen might press her into service.
Or destroy her.
Andrea was fine with either one.
Chapter 4
“LOOK, I’m happy to play driver-guy and all—”
“The word is chauffer, Daniel.”
“—but aren’t you gonna explode or something when the sun comes up?”
“No, but I will burst into flames and make a terrible mess in your car. I’ll probably scream a bit, too.”
“Well, we’ll just stop and stay at a motel before sunrise.”
She shrugged. “Or you could just put me in the trunk and keep going.”
“I couldn’t do that!” he said, shocked, big dumb blue eyes wide with distress.
“We’d make better time.”
“You know, you’re still a cool one. I remember that about you in school. Just cool as a—a—”
“Cucumber?”
“Yech, I hate cucumbers. You’re as cool as a chilly tomato. Anyway, I’m happy to take you back to the Cities, but you were gonna tell me about how you got vampired, don’t forget now.”
“Telling you how I got turned won’t even get us out of the city.”
“Well, then I’ll tell you everything I’ve been up to.”
“Swell,” she mumbled. Then, louder, “All right. A deal is a deal. I was working late—this was my internship at KPMG. And I got grabbed while I was in the parking ramp—the big one on Marquette?”
“Sure, I know it. I park there when there’s no parking at the Target Center, you know, if there’s a game or something.”
“Terrific. We have more and more in common all the time. Anyway, it turns out it was the three hundred fiftieth year of Nostro—he was like the vampire king—anyway, it was the anniversary of his reign. Very big deal. And because he was a dramatic fuck, he had his underlings kidnap a bunch of women and made us part of his ceremony. And—and a bunch of vampires sort of—sort of pounced on us all at once. He—they—kept us for days. Then they threw us away when they were done with us. The other girls died. But I caught the infection, and rose.”
Nobody around; the moon high. Smells . . . rotting meat, fresh earth. The moon, so bright. So thirsty. Climbing over dead girls, so thirsty. It didn’t matter what happened; didn’t matter where she was, who she was; only the thirst mattered. So thirsty. So—
“That fucking sucks! Those pieces of shit!”
“It was . . . it was extremely awful.” And, oddly, she felt better for telling it. For finally telling it.
“What a fucking awful way to die!”
“Yes. Anyway, I rose from the dead and started feeding and eventually ended up passing through Chicago and that’s what I’ve been up to for the past six years, how about you?” she asked with faux brightness.
“Jesus, Andrea,” he said, not noticing her flinch, “I’m really sorry. That sucks the root.”
“Thank you. You’re about to miss our exit.”
Cursing, he wrenched the wheel to the right and, ignoring the hail of horns, careened over into the proper lane. “You said—you said you caught an infection. Is that like how you become a vampire? I thought you had to drink a vampire’s blood and he had to drink yours, or something.”
She shook her head. “Old wives’ tale. Most people die of extended . . . attention. If you catch it, you rise from the dead. It’s not a big mystery.”
“So you’ve been roaming the streets of Chicago for the last six years?”
“I—I think so.”
“Huh?”
“Which word didn’t you understand?” she snapped, then instantly softened. She should be flattered that he was so curious. He certainly hadn’t shown this kind of interest in her in college. Not Andrea Mercer, she of the mousy hair, mousy eyes, mousy life.
And had anybody cared enough in the last few years to ask her anything? Anything at all? She would do well, she reminded herself, to not be such a damned snob and remember Daniel was only asking questions because he cared. Or was morbidly interested. Same thing, in her world. “I don’t remember much of the early years. You have to—you think about feeding all the time. All the time. And once you’ve fed you start thinking about when you can feed again.”
“Jeez,” he said, respectfully, if not very originally.
“It’s like the worst thirst you’ve ever had, times a million, every minute you’re awake. I might have made some vampires myself; I just don’t know. I—I hope not.”
In fact, this mindless frenzy, this constant hunger, and the complete inability to remember anything beyond the hunger, was a source of deep shame for her. She, always the top of her class, a precocious child. She’d memorized the periodic table in half an hour. But all of last year was a blank. Likewise the year before. And the year before. And the—
“Well, you seem a lot better now. You seem just like you were in school. You know, s
tandoffish, smart, bitch—uh, temperamental.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly. “The reason I seem ‘better’ is because I’m a little older. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a positive infant by vampire standards, but I’m not a newborn anymore, either.”
“So you’re not thirsty all the time?”
“Oh, sure I am.” She glanced at his neck and grinned. “I can just control it a little better. Lucky for you.”
“You didn’t look like you were controlling yourself too good when you started chewing on me,” he grumbled.
“I didn’t know you then,” she explained. “I thought you were just some guy.”
“Oh, that makes me feel much better.”
“It should,” she said truthfully.
Chapter 5
“I still say I should just get in the trunk. We could be in the Cities in another four hours.”
“Look, I’m not driving around with a vampire in my fucking car trunk, okay? I can afford the hundred bucks for a hotel room.”
“Waste of money,” she grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest and waiting while he fiddled with the key card.
“Says you. I’m driving, I get to say when we stop.”
“What exactly do I get to say?”
“Tell me more about being a vampire.”
“Bo-ring.”
“That’s because you don’t have any . . . uh . . . what’s the word?”
“Perspective.”
“Right. You don’t have that. But I have tons of it.”
He opened the door and gestured for her to move ahead of him. She stopped short and stared at the single king-sized bed.
“Oh,” he said.
“Right,” she said.
“I asked for a double.”
“It’s no big deal. I’ll sleep under the bed.”
“Oh, good, because that’s not incredibly creepy or anything. Look, you can trust me. I won’t lay a finger on you while you’re . . . er . . . slumbering or whatever.”
“I wouldn’t notice if you did.” She marched across the room, turned the air conditioner off—
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