“Aw, that’s okay. It’s kind of nice to hear you raise your voice once in a while. You’re a pretty cool customer, y’know?”
“I used to think so.” She sighed, fell into step beside him, and made a conscious effort not to rest her head on his shoulder.
They found his Intrepid and climbed into it. When she refused to buckle her seat belt (“Honestly, Daniel, what could possibly happen to me?”) he leaned across her and belted her in. His chest pressed briefly against her shoulder, and his breath, redolent of spearmint gum, tickled her ear.
“So!” he said cheerfully, starting the car and playfully racing the engine. “We’re off to see the Wizard! I figure we got about seven hours of darkness left. Plenty of time.”
“That’s true,” she said, cheering up. “I’ll see the new vampire queen soon, so I probably won’t have to worry about anything much longer.”
“What are you talking about?” He pulled into traffic after checking blind spots she didn’t know existed. For a happy-go-lucky laid-back type, he was fanatically careful behind the wheel. “Won’t worry about what?”
“Well, the new queen probably won’t want any baby vampires around.”
“Baby vam—what does that mean?”
She was momentarily surprised, then remembered he really didn’t know anything at all. “Sorry, I thought you knew. She’ll kill me, of course. All the young ones. I mean, we’re not much use to her, and it’s a great way to get her point across. So I’m dead meat. Again,” she added cheerfully.
He nearly drove into the stoplight. “What?”
“It’s not like killing a real person,” she said, trying to soothe him. She should have guessed he’d take power-killing entirely the wrong way. “I’ve already got a death certificate, remember.” She rubbed her hands together in anticipation. “Yep, she’ll take one look at me and know I’m useless to her and—glllllkkkkkk!” She drew her finger across her throat. “Sayonara, sweetheart.”
“Jesus Christ!” Daniel yelled, which nearly made her throw up. “Are you insane? You’re taking a trip to see a vampire who you’re pretty sure is gonna kill you?” He slammed on the brakes. In fact, he stood on them. The car shrieked like a cat and the cords stood out on his neck as he wrestled with the wheel. Her breath was cut off (big deal) as the seat belt locked. Hmm. Maybe it was a good thing he’d belted her in . . . otherwise she’d probably be skimming the road like a tiddledywink about now.
“For crying out loud,” she said when the car had shuddered to a smoking stop. “What is your problem?”
“My problem? My—well, forget that shit! No way am I driving you to your own murder! I’m turning this car around right now and we’re going back to Chicago.”
“Oh, for the love . . .” She put a hand over her eyes.
“Yeah, you heard me.” He twisted in his seat, glared through the rear window, then slammed the car in reverse. “Look, Andy, I’m real sorry you hate your life right now, but I think you’re a super chick, and I’m not driving you to be some damn vampire queen’s hors doover!”
“It’s pronounced,” she said gently, “hors d’oeuvre.”
“I give a shit!”
“That’s fine,” she said, “but I guess I’ll just have to steal a car—it’s not difficult, I assure you—and go myself. Alone.”
He glared at her. “No you won’t!”
“Sure I will.”
“Won’t!”
“Ah . . . will.”
“Dammit!”
He put the car in neutral and fumed while it idled. She hummed and studied her nails. Eck. She had some of Big ’n’ Smelly’s blood under her index nail. Could she lick it off without Daniel noticing? Maybe he—
“Okay,” he said abruptly. “Here’s the new plan.”
“I’m breathless with anticipation.”
“I still drive you to Minneapolis—”
“So, the new plan is the old plan.”
“—but, I’m going with you to meet the vampire queen.”
“I beg your pardon,” she said politely, “but you certainly are not.”
“No escort, no ride! That’s the way it is.”
She studied him and briefly considered knocking him out and stealing the Intrepid. But she had the odd feeling it might not be quite as easy as she thought.
Well, she had a ride (again), and she could always ditch him at an opportune moment.
And his concern was really . . . well . . . really . . .
“Let’s go,” she said, “before I start to cry again.”
Chapter 8
“HEY, I have a present in the trunk,” he said, returning to the car with their room key.
“A pillow?” she asked brightly. “Your trunk’s certainly long enough to stretch out in.”
“Yuck, no.” He opened her door, waited impatiently while she slowly climbed out, then slammed it and popped the trunk. He withdrew a bag with the Target logo, and tossed it to her.
“Awww,” she said. “Plastic. Gee, I didn’t get you anything.”
“Open it, wiseass. Sheesh. If I hadn’t known you before you were a blood-sucking fiend of the night, I’d think all vampires were this weird.”
“Oh, we are.” She opened the bag and saw several t-shirts, a few pairs of shorts, two cardigans: one in white, one in black. “Oh. Clothes.”
“Well, you sort of joined me with, like, just the stuff on your back, and I know you don’t need to shower or anything, but new clothes are kind of nice, doncha think?”
He was watching her so anxiously, her dead heart almost skipped a beat. “They’re very nice,” she assured him. “Very thoughtful. Thank you.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t have any money to pay you b—”
“Forget it. We’re on the end, here, second floor.” He led her through the lobby and into the elevator. “Listen,” he continued when the doors closed, “what have you been doing for money?”
She blinked at him. She didn’t have to blink much anymore, but she liked to do it for effect. “Nothing, of course. What do I need money for? Food? Shelter? Warm clothes? Bikinis? Sunscreen? A family to feed?” She tried—and failed—to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Let’s not forget, for the last few years I’ve been little more than an animal. This is probably the first time I’ve even thought about money in six years.”
“Huh.”
That was all he said as they exited the elevator, walked down the hall, and entered their room like robots who didn’t know each other. The room faced west, and she was gratified to see the curtains were thick.
“So what about your folks?” he asked, just when she thought he was going to shut up for a while.
She’d been pretending to read the “Welcome to the Super 8” brochure. “What about them?”
“Well . . . aren’t you going to tell them you aren’t dead?”
She stood, crossed to him, took his hand, and placed it in the middle of her chest. Then waited patiently. Then said, “I am dead, Daniel. Please note the absence of a pulse.”
He didn’t move his hand, but made an impatient expression with his eyebrows. “You know what I mean.”
“Well, let’s see . . . my mom left my dad when I was twelve, and I haven’t seen her since, and last I heard Dad was off somewhere in New Jersey with Stepmother Number Three. I doubt they noticed I was dead.”
“Oh,” he said. Then, “Sorry.”
“It’s nothing.”
“How come I didn’t get invited to your funeral?”
“I’m sorry,” she said politely. “Your invitation must have gotten lost in the garbage disposal.”
“Now, cut that out! You know what I mean.”
“Look, I wasn’t exactly around to plan the fucking thing, okay? Ask the funeral director why you weren’t invited. I was busy clawing my way out of my own grave.”
“O-kay. Y’don’t have to be so touchy.”
“And you don’t have to be such a dumbass,” she snapped, “and yet,
you seem unable to stop.”
“Well, it’s better than being a bitch!”
“No, it is not!”
“Yeah, it is!”
“You know, most people would have the sense to be afraid of me, but you, you’re too dumb!”
“Afraid of what? A bloodsucking shrew?”
“Do you even know,” she asked with deadly venom, “what a shrew is?”
“A shrew,” he said, his index finger stabbing her nose, “is a woman of violent temper. It’s also a small mouselike animal with a sharp nose.”
She paused. “I’m going to make you eat that dictionary.”
“Try it, cutie. I’ll bounce you across this room like a Super Ball.”
“I don’t want to be bounced like a Super Ball,” she admitted, and he cracked up.
“Awwwww,” he said when he had finished hee-hawing like a donkey. “Our first fight.”
“I could snap your neck,” she commented, “like a toothpick.”
“You’d never hurt your driver, sugar buns!”
She concealed a shudder. “Please don’t ever call me that again.”
“What were we fighting about again? Because we shouldn’t go to bed angry at each other.”
“You’re confusing us with newlyweds.” The thought would have made her blush, if she still could have. Sadly, Smelly’s blood had been long metabolized and she was back to being corpse white until she fed again. “Never mind. Chalk it up to a long day.”
He patted the bed. “Well, you can sleep . . . or whatever you do . . . right now.” He flopped onto the bed and groped for the remote. “The nice thing about having you for a roommate, absolutely nothing wakes you up.”
“I’m so happy for you.” She gingerly climbed on the bed and stretched out beside him. “Honestly? It doesn’t . . . creep you out or anything?”
“Heck no!” he said, a little too heartily. At her piercing stare, he added, “Well . . . a little. I held my finger under your nose for, like, an hour—nothing. Not a single tickle of breath.”
“I hope you washed it first.”
“My finger?” he teased. “Or your nose?”
“Very funny.”
“But anyway, once I got used to it . . . no biggie. I mean—no offense—but you were always different.”
“Yes,” she said, staring at the ceiling. “I suppose I was.” “I should have gone out with you in college.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
“I was an idiot.”
“Yes.”
“But sometimes,” he said, reaching for her hand, “things can be fixed.”
“And sometimes,” she said, gently extricating her fingers from his, “they can’t. It’s too late now, Daniel. Years too late. We were just different people then. Now we’re different creatures entirely.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t have a fresh start.”
She sighed and put a hand over her eyes. “Daniel, dear, you’re so dumb you make me tired. Because that’s exactly what it means. I’m sorry to be blunt.”
“I’m not as dumb as you think, you know,” he said with mild heat, but half his attention was already captured by ESPN.
“Of course not,” she agreed. “You’re just dumb compared to me.”
“Go to sleep,” he said sourly.
“I can’t. The sun isn’t up y—”
Chapter 9
THE first thing she heard, hours later, was Daniel yawning like a bear at the end of winter. “Finally,” he said by way of greeting. “I didn’t think you were ever gonna wake up. And did you know it’s one, two, three, you’re zonked? I thought you’d had a stroke or something.”
“Fine, thanks, how are you?”
“Very funny.” He yawned again. “Would you check in that bedside drawer for the HBO guide? I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Why?” she asked, rolling over and groping for the knob. “We’re staying in to watch The Sopranos instead of driving the last half hour to St. Paul?”
“I just like to know what’s on,” he said. “Hey, you should be glad I’m reading.”
“Oh, I’m thrilled,” she assured him. Her lips wanted to smile but she sternly repressed them. “I’m—” Her hand dropped into the drawer and instantly she was on fire; her mind was equal parts agony and surprise and fury: surprise at the pain, agony at the pain, fury that she could be so stupid.
Her shriek brought Daniel off the bed and at her side in less than a heartbeat; she didn’t think a mortal could move so fast. She was holding her wrist with her left hand. Her right hand was smoking. The drawer had pulled all the way out of the table, and the Gideon Bible had tumbled to the floor.
“Oh my God,” Daniel gasped, which made her shriek louder. “Your hand, Andy, your poor—” He hauled her off the bed, kicked the Bible under the bed, and then he was running the tap in the bathroom, taking her poor crisped paw and running it carefully under the cool water. “Andy, I’m so sorry, I didn’t—I should have—”
She took a deep shuddering breath, which made her dizzy, but calmed her a bit, too. “It’s my own fault. I should have known it was in there. It’s in every bedside drawer in every motel in the country.” She shivered against him. “It hurts,” she added dully.
“Of course it does, poor baby. If you were anyone but . . . well, you, we’d be calling 911 this minute and taking you to the ER. But . . .” He looked at her doubtfully, doubtless picturing a frantic intern trying to find her pulse, her blood pressure, anything.
“It will heal,” she said. She dared a peek at her hand. At least it wasn’t boiling smoke anymore. Her thumb was blackened, but the rest of her fingers merely had the dark red look of boiled lobster. “Eventually.”
“This is bogus,” Daniel said angrily. “I get that you’re a vampire and all, but you were forced into it, and it’s not like you’re munching on first-graders. What’s God got against you?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, “but He appears to be plenty pissed.”
“Well, shit. That’s not fair.”
“This is—is the Creator, remember? Not known for his scrupulous sense of fair play. He asked Jacob to kill his own son, if memory serves, set Eve up, screwed over the Jews . . . oh, all sorts of things. He never plays fair. He doesn’t have to—it’s his board game.”
“For a vampire, you know a lot about it.”
“Theology minor,” she reminded him.
He turned the water off, took a snow-white hand towel from the shelf, and gently patted her hand dry. It stung like mad, but it wasn’t the burning agony it had been before.
“Poor Andy,” he said again, and kissed the tip of her middle finger, which was dark pink. “I’m really sorry. Should have got the damned HBO guide myself.”
“You read my mind.”
He laughed and hugged her to him. “Cripes, woman, you scared the shit out of me. You got some lungs on you, didja know?”
“It’s not every day I feel the agony of myself bursting into flames. To think I used to fantasize about walking on the beach during sunrise! Well, forget that.”
His grip tightened. He was so tall, his chin rested on her head. “Don’t talk about that,” he said into her part. “Not anymore, okay?”
“I think it’s safe to say my self-destructive streak is at an end for now,” she said truthfully into his neck. His lovely, taut neck. She could actually see the blood pressure pumping up his jugular, and jerked back.
“Oh, come on, don’t do that,” he said coaxingly, grabbing her elbow and pulling her back into his embrace. Her burned hand stuck out behind him like a crosswalk sign. “We were kind of having a moment and everything.”
“Uh . . . Daniel . . . it’s not that I’m not finding this pleasant, because I truly am . . .”
“Good. Now stop talking and enjoy it.”
She growled at him.
“Oh, go ahead and bite, then,” he murmured. “I don’t care. And I bet it’ll make your hand feel better, huh? The only thing is, if
I pass out, you’ve got to get me to the car and drive the rest of the way.”
“Daniel, you have no fucking idea what you’re saying.”
“Sure I do. I think you’re pretty cool. It’s not that I didn’t like you in school; I just didn’t bother to get to know you. But now . . . I think you’re a tough chick handling herself in an unbelievably sucky situation. Also, you’ve got a great rack for a dead girl.”
“For crying out loud,” she said, resting her forehead on his shoulder. “I suppose you think you’re being sweet.”
“Awww, you can’t resist me, gorgeous.”
“Dammit!”
“I couldn’t help but notice,” he said, running his hands up and down her back as she snuggled more firmly into his embrace, “that you didn’t exactly deny it. You just swore again. It totally proves me ri—mmph!”
She was kissing him. She couldn’t believe she was doing it . . . had gotten up just the right amount on her tiptoes and mashed her lips to his. Oh, sweet relief. She’d wanted to do it for eight years. Of course, she’d only remembered wanting to do it for the last seventy-two hours, but forgetting hadn’t made him less of the boy she’d pined after in college, the boy she’d followed to St. Olaf from Carleton College, the man she pined for now. She’d left a school to follow a football player, and had despised herself for it at the time, and ever since.
There was nothing to despise, now. He was good, he was kind, he liked her, he didn’t wince away in horror at what she was. So what if she had a few IQ points on him? What had that gotten her, exactly? An early grave, that’s what.
His tongue eased past her lips and her good hand slid through his short hair, caressing the fine hairs at the back of his neck. His hand was under her shirt, stroking her bare back, and then she bit him.
Now he was the one up on his toes, trembling, and as his hot salty essence flooded her mouth the burning agony in her hand faded, faded, was a slight pain, was a negligible itch, was gone. She could hear him groaning, could feel him groping at her, and then her shirt was in shreds, and his was split down the middle, and they were dancing/ staggering out of the bathroom, toward the bed, pulling and tugging and biting and drinking and kissing.
Cravings Page 11
