by Молли Харпер
Grumpy and frustrated beyond belief, I took advantage of my night off, turned off the phone, and, despite the siren’s call of Sense and Sensibility, I read a few more chapters of Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were. I finally found what a bloodening was.
The women of the clan get naked under the new moon and track down a deer, killing it as a pack and bringing it home for a shared meal. It was supposed to be held during the week of the wedding to assure the bride symbolically that she was still part of the clan and that she would always be welcome to share its food but also reminding her that she was responsible to continue the clan’s traditions. It was a warm, though blood-soaked, sentiment. It was a special privilege for an outsider to be invited to witness a bloodening, much less run with the pack—which, as you might have guessed, as best maid, I was expected to do. I was going to need some sturdy running shoes and a really good sports bra.
I do not run naked.
My lolling about on the porch swing in the cold, making no effort to leave the house, seemed to disturb Aunt Jettie. “Is this sudden lean toward shiftlessness linked to all the time you’ve been spending with Dick?” Aunt Jettie said, in a tone that sounded eerily like Grandma Ruthie.
“Actually, Dick hasn’t wanted to spend much time with me lately, Aunt Jettie. We had an argument and he’s pretty irritated with me.”
“Is that why he’s coming up the drive?” She pointed to the driveway, where a battered El Camino was cutting through the dust. Dick climbed out of the car without making eye contact. He slinked up the porch steps and took a seat beside me. I closed my book and waited.
“Am I supposed to talk first?”
“Give me a minute.” He cut me off with a slicing gesture.
We sat in silence, with me staring into the distance, wondering what to do with my hands.
Finally, he said, “I’ve been scared to say anything to Gilbert because I didn’t want him to be afraid of me or to turn away from me. It’s one thing to read about vampires and ghosts, it’s another to find out that you’re related to one.”
He studied the creases on his jeans. Unsure of my place in this exchange, I sat and waited.
“I knew Eugenia had the baby. My parents paid to keep her away while she was pregnant.
When she had him, most of the town whispered about him being mine, but I didn’t do anything about it. I knew my parents were sending her money every month, and I figured that was all she needed from me. Don’t make that face at me, Jane. I was young and mortal … and stupid. I was sent away to handle some contrived piece of family business, and by the time I came back, my parents had sent the baby to an orphanage over in Murphy. They wouldn’t hear of bringing him to our home. The scandal, they said, the shame—even though I know for a fact my Daddy had several scandals of his own growing up around town. And then my parents died, and I lost the house to the jackass—”
“Gabriel,” I corrected.
“Right,” he said. “I told myself Albert was better off living at the orphanage, in a safe place, instead of bouncing around with me, living off card games, sleeping in a fine hotel one night and a ditch the next. That was just an excuse, of course. I didn’t know anything about kids. I wouldn’t have known what to do with him if I’d had him. I was a terrible father but a fun uncle. I’d visit Albert, give him penny candy and whatever money I could scrape together. But as soon as it came to real problems, the kid getting sick, getting into trouble at school, I was out of there.”
He grimaced. “When I got turned, I realized I shouldn’t be around him. It would be too confusing for him, a mysterious uncle who never aged and only visited at night. I was a piss-poor role model, anyway. And the people I did business with, they wouldn’t have minded roughing up a little boy to make a point. I stopped showing up for visits, and he ran away a couple of months later.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Part of me was almost relieved,” he admitted. “I didn’t have to worry. I didn’t have to bother. And then he came back, full-grown and the spitting image of me, especially in some of his less legal habits. And it was … nice. It was nice to be able to watch him, to see him running his business, being a man. I couldn’t always agree with some of his decisions, but at that point, I was supposed to be about sixty years old and still looked thirty something. I couldn’t exactly come back to give him a spanking and fatherly advice.
He married, had a son. His son married, had a son. And I watched over them, all of them, watched them live their lives, enjoy their successes, make their mistakes. And most of their mistakes were a lot like mine. It’s sort of the Cheney family curse.”
“Good with women, bad with money?” I suggested.
He shrugged and smiled. “I never made contact,” he said. “I was still hanging around with the same type of people, and the less likely they were to connect me to the family, the better. I couldn’t stand it if any of them got hurt because of me. I thought I’d gotten rid of the paper trail when I set the fire in the courthouse.”
“Why do you tell me these things?” I huffed. “You know I have a Girl Scout complex.”
“I never made contact with them,” he said, ignoring me. “Not until Gilbert.”
“Why Gilbert?”
“He was the first in our family who looked like he might amount to something. He was such a good boy, and in a sincere way. He honestly cared about his mother, his little sister, his classmates at school, his country. He was one of the first boys in the Hollow to sign up for the Army after Pearl Harbor. He was the first man in our family to start college, much less finish it.” Dick smiled proudly. “And his sister was a sweet girl, just a little, well, stupid. But she was the first girl born to the family in about five generations, so she was special, too.
“When their father died and his mother was having trouble making ends meet, I came forward. Just knocked on the door one night. I didn’t tell her who I was exactly, just a distant cousin who was interested in making sure the family was well taken care of. I think she knew there was something not quite right about me, especially when I told her I didn’t want to meet the kids or tell them I was helping them. But she was too happy to accept my money to say anything.”
“I always got the impression that you were lucky to take care of yourself. How’d you support a family?” I asked.
“I have ways of making extra money when I need it,” he said, slightly offended. “When Gilbert needed money for graduate school, I sold a kidney on the black market for tuition.”
“We can grow those back?” I asked.
“It wasn’t my kidney.”
“And now we’re back to the disturbing territory I’m comfortable with.” I snorted. “So, you’re a family man, a loving patriarch. In essence, you’re a total fraud.”
He looked chastened. “Don’t tell anybody.”
“Are you going to tell him? I think it would mean a lot to Mr. Wainwright to know he has some family left.”
“What am I supposed to do? Come barreling into the store and shout, ‘Hey, pal, wanna go outside and play catch with Grandpa?’ “ I shrugged. “Well, you might want to work your way up to catch. He does have that bad hip. You should at least think about telling him. What have you got to lose?”
Dick tucked his canines over his bottom lip. All pretense, all of the smug self-assurance, fell away as he said, “What if he’s ashamed of me?”
“You’re a vampire. You’re the coolest grandpa on the block. He’ll be thrilled.”
“I’ll think about it,” Dick said. Suddenly, he raised his voice and poked me in the shoulder.
“Let me work through this. Don’t try to nudge the situation along. Don’t drop hints or make conversational segues or—”
“I got it, I got it,” I told him, raising my hands in self-defense. “I wasn’t even thinking about it.”
Dick looked down his nose at me and arched his eyebrow.
“OK, I was thinking about it a little bit.”
13
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br /> Humans who prove unfaithful to their were-spouses are rarely heard from again.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were My future step-grandpa was an enigma wrapped in a riddle stored in a Rubik’s Cube, which I always had to resort to rearranging the stickers to solve. I won’t pretend my interest was rooted in concern for my grandmother, just a general weakness in my character that would not allow me to leave a question unanswered.
For the record, four cans of Starbucks Double Shot Dark Blend Blood and Espresso is just enough to yank a vampire out of bed before sunset. Zeb wisely armed himself with caffeine before entering my daytime lair and enlisted Jettie’s help in shoving me into an ice-cold shower (in my pajamas) to complete the wake-up process.
Some older vamps can venture out in the day under controlled circumstances with no problem. I blister and smell like burnt popcorn, which stays with you for days. So I slathered myself in Solar Shield SPF 500 sunscreen and donned huge Jackie O sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat before venturing out to my newly sun-safe car. OK, fine. Zeb had the motor running, and I dove through the open door, unbelievably exhilarated by my not bursting into flames.
As he turned the key in the ignition, Zeb asked, “Remind me again why we’re risking you bursting into flame to drive seventy miles to visit some old folks’ home?” Clearly, he didn’t appreciate the Mama-caliber guilt tactics I’d used to get him to accompany me on this little excursion.
“Because when I snuck a look into Wilbur’s wallet, this was the address on his ID.”
Zeb was aghast. “You snuck a look at his wallet? When?”
“Christmas,” I said, looking down to avoid his glare.
“Why would you do that?” he demanded.
“He left it right there in his coat pocket, come on.”
“You’re not allowed to hang out with Dick anymore,” he told me as he turned the ignition. “So, why couldn’t we do this after dark?”
“I called the front desk pretending to be a potential resident’s daughter. The nurse said dinner was served at three-thirty. And I’m guessing the people we’d want to talk to will be asleep by four.”
“You’re a scary woman, Jane Jameson.”
I shrugged, pulling my hood over my face and leaning my seat back to a snoozing position. “I do what I can.”
I jolted awake when Zeb cut Big Bertha’s engine outside the Sunnyside Village Retirement Community. With one eye squinched shut, I wiped the drool off my cheek and looked around. The building seemed innocuous enough. Overtly cheerful yellow siding on a cracker-box building, glowing in the orange light of the fading sun. Newly painted white shutters framing windows with the shades drawn tight.
I pulled out my sunblock for safety touch-up. I’d decided against gloves, as it was a typically mild early spring day, and full-length opera gloves would probably attract attention. The thick, white SPF 500 lotion took a while to absorb into my neck, chin, and hands. I pulled the hat over my eyes.
“How do I look?” I asked, turning to him.
“Well, if we were going to a performance of Kabuki Mugger Theater, this look would be perfect,” he snorted, gesturing to my smudged jawline. “You might want to blend some more.”
“Dang it,” I grumbled, swiping at my cheeks.
After a few more minutes of sunblocking, I carefully opened the door and stepped out. I gasped, enveloped in the sun for the first time since my turning. Even though it was weak late-afternoon light, I was overwhelmed by the warmth that swirled over my skin like a caress. The colors made me want to weep. I hadn’t realized how monotonous the night sky could be. I’d missed the burnt golds, the blushing pinks giving way to deep purple as the sun faded over the horizon. I smiled, stretching out my hands and basking in heat like a cat. And then ow. Ow. Owowowowowow.
I’d forgotten to sunscreen the delicate webs between my fingers. Ow! It felt as if I’d dipped my hands in acid. I stared in horror, transfixed as the skin sizzled and smoked.
“Put your hands in your pockets, Jane!” Zeb cried.
“Oh, right!” I stuck my shaking hands into my jacket and turned my back to the light, doubling over, waiting for the pain to subside. After a few moments, I felt the tissue in my fingers knit itself together again, a new and unpleasant stinging sensation unto itself. I took a deep breath and straightened, flexing my fingers gingerly. Zeb was staring at me over Big Bertha’s hood.
“I don’t think you want to go in there with smoking hands that smell of blackened Jiffy Pop,” he said.
“I think I’ll just stay in the car,” I said meekly.
“Probably for the best,” Zeb said, nodding and pressing his lips together in a resigned line.
I stayed huddled behind the heavily screened windows, napping, while Zeb ventured inside. I was tired, drained, all of my being focused on my raw, healing skin. When your mortality is taken out of the equation of life, you tend to take certain things, such as paralyzing agony, for granted. Is that what it would feel like to go out during the day? I imagined it was only a fraction of the pain an unprotected vampire would suffer in full sun.
And even that small portion was torture. Of the few ways vampires could die, death by suntan was definitely at the bottom of the list.
A short time later, my partner in crime startled me awake with a sharp knock on the window.
“I just barely convinced them that I was the great-grandson of the oldest guy there, whose name I did not know. I had to keep calling him Pappy.”
“What did he say?” I asked, rubbing my tired eyes. “Had he heard of Wilbur Goosen?”
“No, he was far more interested in a rerun of Matlock than talking to me. And then some other guy heard me say Wilbur’s name, and he made the weirdest, wrinkliest face I’d ever seen. Then he cursed at me in Lithuanian and whacked me with his cane,” Zeb said, rubbing his arm gingerly. “He then switched to English and suggested I perform various sexual acts on myself.”
“If you could do that by yourself, we would never see you,” I said, despite the glare Zeb sent my way. “How did you know it was Lithuanian?”
He seemed offended. “Like you’re the only smart one around here.”
“Sorry I put you through all of that for nothing.”
“No, on the way out—while I was dodging the cane—a much nicer lady stopped me. She apparently had her hearing aids turned all the way up and heard our conversation. She was an old flame of Wilbur’s.”
“Say what now?”
“When Wilbur Goosen lived at Sunnyside, he was quite the Don Juan. Ila Faye Pogue, the lady in question, was one heart torn asunder in the swath he cut across the Shuffleboard Circuit. At one point, there was a catfight in the rec room among three of his interests.
Wigs and walkers and glass eyes flying everywhere …”
“I don’t need to think about that.”
“Mrs. Pogue had photos in her album. The administration was on the verge of asking Wilbur to leave when he just passed away in his sleep. It was very sudden.”
“He died? Are we sure she had the right Wilbur Goosen?”
“How many Wilbur Goosens could there be?” he pointed out. I nodded. “Besides, she had pictures of the two of them. Kissing.”
He showed me a sample photo. I winced. “Bleh. Don’t I have enough randy geriatrics in my life? And she was sure he died?”
“Well, they buried him,” he said, starting the car. “So, what would that make him? A vampire? A zombie?”
“This isn’t really my area of expertise,” I said. “But it explains the health shakes.”
“Well, have you ever seen him during the day?”
“I don’t see anybody during the day.”
“Aren’t there some vampire tests we can do? We can make him touch silver, put him under a sun lamp. Oh, we can force-feed him garlic bread.”
“I like your enthusiasm. But why don’t we just ask him?” I suggested.
“Well, where’s the fun in that?” Zeb pouted. “Besides, what are you
going to say, ‘Hi, I know you want to marry my grandma, who I’m not on great terms with, but I was hoping you could tell me whether you’re, you know, an undead gigolo hell-bent on killing her and taking the family fortune’? I’m sure that would improve your relationship with Ruthie.
Come on, let’s sprinkle silver shavings in his pants.
“Well, what are you going to do?” he said when I ignored his proposal. “Find his lair? Do your best Peter Cushing imitation?”
I shot him the Arched Eyebrow of Bewilderment. He responded by wrapping his fingers around a pretend stake and made stabbing motions. At least, I hoped it was a pretend stake and stabbing motions, because otherwise our relationship just took an upsetting and inappropriate turn.
“Why would I do that?” I asked.
“Because he’s evil!”
I gaped at him. “Because he’s probably not one hundred percent human, we should assume he’s an evil monster?” Zeb’s face sagged into “oops” lines. “Yeah, how’s that foot taste?”
“Sorry,” he said. “Sometimes I forget that you’re not one hundred percent human.”
“Hmph.”
On the drive back to town, I tried to work up the nerve to bring up Zeb’s odd behavior, the unexplained absences and “chores” at his mama’s house. Was Zeb thinking about leaving Jolene at the altar? Was that even possible when you were mated to a werewolf?
Zeb avoided the fully exposed highways in favor of the more shaded backroads, where we were treated to fantastic scenery. Weeds almost high enough to hide the junked cars and defunct riding mowers. Trailers with rotting underpinning flapping in the wind. And there was a school bus parked next to almost every house, most of which did not appear able to run. I kept telling myself I would just blurt out the first question at the next trailer we saw, and the next, and the next. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know if Zeb was capable of jilting Jolene. I didn’t want know if he was capable of hurting someone that way, of that level of deceit. These aren’t thoughts you want to have about your best friend.
