by J. F. Lewis
“This is a bad idea.” Eric sighed.
I kissed him tenderly, working my hands under his T-shirt, against his skin. His mouth was warmer, like he’d been inside long enough for the heat to seep in and the cold had yet to leach it out.
No, it isn’t. “We’re good at bad ideas, you and me.” I undid his belt buckle, pulling him toward the lobby of the Pollux. Resistance sparked in his eyes, but he didn’t stop me.
“Why are you doing this, Tabitha?” he asked me. I gave up on taking him inside, pulled his T-shirt off over his head. Both sides of the street were blocked off so it wasn’t like anyone was around, but I still got a giddy little thrill at the thought of being with Eric out in the open. It felt like the first time I’d stepped out onstage at the Demon Heart. I smiled lasciviously and he took it the wrong way. “What do you want this time? You’re already a vampire. I’m broke.”
“I’ve got money.”
I kissed him again, painful hungry kisses because even in human guise, as excited as I was, my fangs poked out of my gums a fraction of an inch, peeking through the pink.
“I don’t want your money,” I said between kisses.
“I do.”
His zipper stuck, the metal tab trapped against the upper seam. Eric’s fangs grazed my tongue as we kissed. That only ever happens when he’s really aroused.
“Something I learned in vampire society. I’m your creation, everything I have is yours, even my body.”
“That’s bullshit,” he said acidly, pushing me away. He stomped toward the Pollux doors, his hands touching the glass before he stopped and looked back. “I don’t own you and I don’t own any of your crap.” He took a few steps back to me. “If that’s what you’re worried about, you can tell everybody I said you’re free or released or whatever the High Society pricks call it.”
I shook my head. “But I don’t want to talk to them. I hate them. They’re all freaks. They don’t even act like people anymore. They’re not like you.” I took his hand in mine. “It’s you I want.”
“This won’t work out,” Eric said under his breath.
“Yes, it will.” I shrugged out of the magic dress I was wearing; I’d changed into Isabella before driving over, wanting to look my best in a dress Eric hadn’t even noticed or cared the least bit about. He cared about what was under the dress. He cared about me. I snapped a fingernail, but the zipper surrendered. Eric wasn’t wearing any underwear. The same was almost true for me.
I pressed my breasts against his chest, felt his hands on my ass, his right hand lingering over the butterfly tattoo he’d designed just for me. He didn’t need chains, whips, or party favors. Eric just needed me. I love you.
“You’re not like Phillip at all.” Did I say that out loud?
I slid my lips over him, like only a woman who doesn’t need oxygen can do, but he turned off. He’s the only man I’d ever been with who could do that, go from ready to not in seconds when he’s angry, sending the blood from one head to the other, tinting the whites of eyes with aggressive red swirls.
“Who the fuck is Phillip?”
I knelt outside the Pollux, only the priceless fabric of Isabella, my Winter original, between me and the pavement. Why did I say that?
“Nobody. He…I…Nobody, baby.”
“Baby? Just like that we’re back together?” He didn’t trust it, shaking his head in a silent no. “Look, I won’t say that I haven’t missed you, that I haven’t thought about you. I have, and you doing the warm thing, that’s very attractive, but…” He reached for his pants.
How do I stop him? “Do you want us to be?”
“Do I want us to be what?” Eric froze in the middle of pulling up his pants.
“Back together.”
“Um…”
The door to the Pollux opened wide, releasing the pent-up odor of freshly baked cinnamon rolls. In the doorway, wearing a bright red thong and a Vampires Do It Upside Down T-shirt, Rachel stared at me with eyes full of hate and a face that was all smiles. “Mind if I cut in?”
“She…” Words caught in my throat. The cinnamon made it hard to think, difficult to form words even in my head.
“We could have a three-way, if you want, Tabitha.” Rachel’s nails, the same bright red as her thong, flickered in the multicolored rays shining down from the Christmas lights. “I don’t mind sharing.”
“You bitch!” It was a thought, but it came out of my mouth, too. Of their own accord, my fingernails elongated into claws; my fangs slid into place. Goose bumps rose on her skin. She stepped out onto the concrete holding a sharpened stake.
“Bitch? You’re the one trying to fellate my master in the street.”
“I’m a vampire, Rachel. Don’t make me hurt you.” The thoughts rushed out of my mouth and it didn’t quite feel like they were mine.
“I’m not afraid of you, Tabitha.” We moved toward each other. Eric interposed himself between, one hand out to restrain each of us. His right hand touched my breast and his left touched Rachel’s.
He squeezed softly, his eyes rolling up, then closing as he announced, “I am now officially going to Hell. I hope you’re both very happy.”
Rachel giggled.
“How are you even alive, Rachel?” I shouted around Eric. My pulse raced. Being this close to alive came with more drawbacks than I realized. Being a vampire really does take the edge off. No adrenaline to make you freak out. Vampires have something similar, but it doesn’t have the kick of the true-blue homegrown chemical nature provides. Eric was old enough to ignore the difference. Going back and forth between states, I lived the difference.
“I didn’t want to be a vampire, Tabitha,” she snarled. “Not every woman needs to deprive their man of the warmth, the blood, the sex he needs. I’m his thrall. I’m happy to be his thrall.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it!” I shouted. “Eric, you’ve got to know this. She—”
“Hush,” Eric ordered, looking me dead in the eye. “Both of you just zip it—for a minute or two. I can’t think with you shouting back and forth at each other. It’s like a verbal demolition derby, for Christ’s sake.”
His command sent me right back to mind-control land, so I physically held my hand over my mouth, the rest of my sentence: was dead and she came back somehow and now she’s a witch or a demon, stuck in my mental queue, unable to be spoken. Rachel winked and touched her nose with her tongue. Eric’s hand left my breast. He checked the time on his wristwatch.
“It’s four forty-one in the morning,” he said. “Rachel, go back to bed. You can crash in one of the dressing rooms backstage. See if Talbot can find you a sleeping bag or a cot. There used to be a couple of rollaways back there, but for all I know they’ve been sold.”
“But, Eric—”
“You’re supposed to be my fucking thrall, right? So do it.” He cut her off with an angry wave. “Tabitha is one of those early-to-bed, late-to-rise vamps. I want to talk to her before that happens.”
Rachel nodded before kissing him, hard and urgently. “Okay, Master.” She grinned at me when she said it. “But for every time you fuck her, you have to screw me twice.”
“Go inside before something freezes and falls off.” Eric rolled his eyes, looking to me like I was his buddy. “She’s a pistol. I’ve gotta…tell…ya. Right.”
We stood in the cold under the flickering Christmas lights on the Pollux marquis, listening to the sound of Rachel’s bare feet moving deeper into the Pollux, followed by her talking to Talbot, settling in. Eric motioned me inside and I followed him like a lovesick puppy, my priceless dress in my hand. I followed him upstairs. His bedroom smelled like cinnamon, too, and like Rachel.
“Eric—”
“I don’t want to talk about Rachel, Tabitha.”
“But—” I began, but he narrowed his eyes and it became a command. I couldn’t talk about Rachel, not a word. Maybe tomorrow the compulsion would fade…
“I can’t explain anything and I can’t toss he
r out. She’s my thrall, or she sort of is, if what Magbidion told me about how you make a thrall was right.”
But she was dead. She’s my sister and I saw her buried. I visited her grave and I… I searched for a safe reply, one his compulsion would allow. “Okay. If you won’t ask about the guys I was with, then I won’t ask about your…girls.”
“I don’t know if we can be together, Tabitha. I’m still the same guy you left.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m back,” I told him.
Eric narrowed his eyebrows. “What? Absence made the heart grow senile?”
“Let’s talk about it tomorrow.” I nodded at the clock next to his bed. “We’re running out of time.” I helped him back out of his jeans. We rolled around on the bed for an hour and I did my best to replace Rachel’s scent with my own. Just before dawn, as I felt the day catching up with me, we climaxed one more time. Eric panted on top of me and it felt like home. “Are you really going to make love to her twice for every time we did?” I asked.
He opened his mouth, but I never heard the answer. Not every vampire walks the daytime. It hits me hard and fast. My sense of the world went away and I lay cold and dead like the living corpse I’d begged to become.
20
ERIC: AFTERTHOUGHTS
I found Greta asleep in my office, curled up under my desk with a blanket. A half-intact rag doll was clutched tightly in her arms, nestled between her breasts. Greta’s long blond hair spilled over the edge of the sofa cushion she was using for a pillow. Clumps of semidried blood matted her hair. She’d fallen asleep without cleaning up, which wasn’t unusual for my little girl.
“Not so little anymore,” I whispered. The memory of the first time I saw her stabbed into my brain. I don’t like to remember it. My eyes squeezed shut. After I banged my head into the door frame a few times, the memory faded. I went back to my bedroom for a washcloth and towel. The water in the Pollux gets hot very quickly. It warmed up my hands, which made the rest of me feel colder. I let the water soak into the washcloth, then wrung it out so that it wouldn’t drip.
Cleaning Greta’s hair took three trips back and forth to the sink. Trip number four got the blood off of her face and neck. Her shirt was a goner, so I tore it off. Greta could sleep through the Apocalypse. Her limbs go rigid, too, rigor mortis for the undead, which made getting a clean shirt back on her something of an ordeal. At least there were no dead animals in her pockets this time. I carried her into the bedroom, tucked her in next to Tabitha.
Tabitha.
Hadn’t I wanted to turn back around yesterday evening and go back to her? Now here she was and all the reasons that things couldn’t work blared loudly in my brain. Rachel could make me feel alive, but I didn’t have to have that. If my partner was warm, then that was enough. And now Tabitha could pretend to be human, could wake her body back up. That changed things, but whether it changed them enough to make us work, I couldn’t say. Thinking about my love life made me tired. When was the last time I’d slept? Another answer I didn’t have.
“Boss?” Talbot called from the doorway. “Eric? I heard you moving around and came on up.”
Turning away from my girls, I only slid the door open a crack. I didn’t want Talbot seeing Tabitha naked and uncovered on the bed. God, I’m a sap. For all I knew, what we’d just had was nothing more than really good breakup sex, despite Tabitha’s words to the contrary. “What is it?”
“Rachel’s gone. I don’t know when she left; I was catching a few z’s. I thought you should know.”
“Shit.” On a whim, I checked the closet. The magic ice sword was still there where I’d left it, leaving condensation rings on the floor. I should get a better hiding place for it, like maybe a freezer. “What time is it?”
“A quarter to nine.”
“Is Magbidion still parked out in the deck?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Just a sec.” I closed the door. Tabitha’s breasts rose gently up and down, each time more slowly than the last. The warmth radiating off of her was three or four degrees lower than a live woman. Watching Tabitha cool down was infinitely more entertaining than what I was going to be doing. Maybe we could work it out, Tabitha and me. I covered her up before I reopened the door. “Can you keep an eye on Greta and Tabitha? I have to go out.”
“It’s daytime.” Talbot put his hand on my shoulder.
“So?”
“The sun?”
“What about it?”
Talbot’s quirky smile lit up his entire face. “You’ll catch fire.”
“Not like I haven’t done that before. You worried?”
Talbot doesn’t need me. If he did, he’d resent me enough not to care what happened to me. It’s a hazard of dealing with mousers. They think like cats. “Just be careful, man,” he said, “you look beat.”
“You haven’t been looking at my aura again, have you?”
“No.”
I popped my claws and grabbed his important bits. “This stuff with you and Tabitha is total mouser bullshit, Talbot. You know that, right?”
Talbot shrugged, but I caught the twitch of a grin at the corner of his mouth.
“What the fuck really happened with Tabitha? Was it really just a screwup or was it on purpose?”
“You’re not going to hurt me, Eric.” The grin was unrestrained now.
I tightened my grip but let go when I realized that it was turning Talbot on.
“Shit, man.”
Talbot laughed, long and clear. “Sorry, Eric, but you know how it is.”
“Seriously, Talbot. No bullshit this time. Did you string her along on purpose, let her see how inhuman the supernatural crowd really is, just so that she’d come running back to me?”
He didn’t answer right away, taking time instead to look around and survey the area, making sure no one else could hear. Who did he think might be listening? “I fucked up, man. I know I already said this, but when she’s a cat, even when she’s not, the way she acts, the way she moves, it’s like she’s one of my people. It had been a long time for me, okay?”
Inside my head, it felt like a door opened, just a fraction, and anger that had been hidden away, restrained, flooded forward and Talbot stood illuminated by the red light in my eyes. I seized him by the collar and his grin vanished.
“If you ever touch my girlfriend again to do anything other than extinguish her flaming body, if you ever have any form of sexual relations with her, I will make you a eunuch, chain you to the wall, and pay the oni to eat you like a tortured animal cracker. Do you understand me?”
He took a deep sniff, smelling me, then nodded. I let him go.
“Okay, now don’t get mad, but can I ask you something?” Talbot panted.
“Sure.”
“A tortured animal cracker?”
I flipped him off. “Feetfirst, asshole. If you want to torture an animal cracker you eat it feetfirst. Everybody knows that.”
Suppressing a smile, Talbot coughed. “Why would you want to torture an animal cracker?”
Walking down the stairs, I turned my back to him. “Shut up. Just shut up. Obviously it’s a human thing. Just—”
“I don’t think it’s a human thing, Eric, I think it’s more of—”
I stopped at the front entrance and didn’t bother to turn around. “Balls ripped off and stuffed in your mouth while you’re eaten alive by oni. Don’t mess with me today, Talbot. Are you going to keep an eye on my girls or not?”
“I’ll keep them safe, Eric.” He gestured grandly. “I’ll keep the whole place safe.”
“Thanks.” I stepped out into the sun and darted around the corner. Smoke trailing behind me, I rolled into the protective darkness of the deck. I should put in a sunlight-safe connection between the two, some kind of underground walkway, but I’ve never gotten around to it.
Mag’s RV was still parked where I hoped it would be. For the luv of God! Sumbudy wash me! was written in the grime on the side of the RV, but other than t
hat it looked roughly the same as it had the last time I’d come knocking.
The side door on the RV hung open. Eggs and pork chops were cooking on the stove. I rapped on the door with my knuckles. “Mags?”
“Come in, Eric,” Magbidion called in an obscenely cheerful voice. In the RV’s tiny kitchen, Magbidion wore hemp pants, a white T-shirt, and a black apron. On the front of the apron a mystic design I’d never seen before glimmered brightly. The symbol looked a little like a floppy pentacle. “I’m just cooking myself some breakfast. If there is anything you want me to eat for you, speak up now.”
“How do you eat your eggs?”
“Over easy.”
“Fried pork chops and eggs?”
“It’s my favorite breakfast,” he answered. “And I’m in a good mood this morning. Someone tried to blow up my home.”
He was showered and shaved. The inside of the RV was spotless, if cluttered. All of the ashtrays had been emptied; there was no porn to be seen. The bed had been made. Even the funky smell was gone, replaced by something lemon scented.
“And this made you happy?”
“Of course. I’ve known for days that someone was going to try to kill me. The signs and portents were all there. I just couldn’t tell if it was the demon who gave me my powers or not.”
“It wasn’t, huh?”
“No, I think it was that Rachel of yours.” Mags flipped hot grease over the top of the eggs with his spatula. I eyed the two chops he had sitting on a paper towel to soak up the excess grease. Even if Jill’s deal was bullshit, I was going to give it a shot. He knew just how to tempt me. One quickie ritual with his Stone of whatever and I could be eating breakfast just like Magbidion. Hell, I could eat pizza. “She’s as powerful as I thought, but not as experienced, I think,” Mags continued.
“What happened?”
“Just a minute and I’ll tell you.” Magbidion slipped the eggs onto his plate, then forked both pork chops next to them. He sat the plate of food on a little built-in table. “Damn it. I forgot to cook the hash browns.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. “Where are your potatoes?”
