by Serena Robar
Tina patted her shoulder reassuringly and I bit my tongue to keep from saying some pretty unflattering things about her flawed thinking. It was one thing to be a vegan as a living human but living off of blood was a vampire’s only option. She couldn’t just suck carrot juice and go about her life doing the happy dance.
This was just one of many conversations we had and by the time we touched down at Sea-Tac, I had a headache the size of Washington State. Gone was my illusion of a plane ride filled with polite conversation. No one asked me questions about Psi Phi House and or the new laws. I expected a certain reserve between total strangers, you know what I mean? But no. Apparently, Sage and Tina’s lives were an open book. And an open audiobook at that.
Tina filled me in on the details of her tragic breakup with Lance, a vampire surfer no less. “I mean, did he really think I was going to hang out on the beach all night and watch him surf? Hello?! Like I don’t have a life of my own or something?”
They sat on either side of me. Tina regaling me with Lance’s selfishness and Sage parroting everything Tina said back to me. “He thinks he is so cool because he surfs at night,” Tina would say and then Sage would interject, “He totally does.”
I was beginning to think that Cookie had hoodwinked the entire Tribunal by holding out and keeping these two until we came in and took them by force. Thereby ridding herself of the chatty half-bloods forever. All without having to lift a finger. In my mind, Cookie was a friggin’ mastermind genius and I was her duped patsy.
I called Piper as soon as we landed to get a ride but she icily reminded me she was shopping with the others and was unavailable to jump up and do my bidding. Ouch. Piper pissed was not something I wanted to deal with right now. Instead, I called up my dad and he picked us up. We loaded up Mom’s Jag (I have no idea how he managed to talk her into that) with all their belongings, which included a rather large stuffed unicorn collection. (I paid fifty bucks for an extra bag so Tina could keep all the fluffy babies Lance had given her, ugh!)
Dad seemed pretty disappointed that both Tina and Sage not only had lovely smiles, but fully functioning fangs as well. I guess when you’re the only orthodontist in town who specialized in fang headgear, it’s a bit disappointing when no one needs your services.
“I’m so thirsty,” Sage announced after her stomach growled. I didn’t care for the way she was eyeing my dad’s neck so I suggested he take us to Dick’s Burgers. Dick’s had been around forever in Seattle and was always hopping. Especially late at night. I was surprised when Sage ordered a chocolate milk shake.
“You can keep that down?” I asked in awe.
“Oh sure. Tina can’t do the milk thing, but I can.”
Neither could I.
“Okay, so how much time do you need?”
“I can take this in the car. We don’t have to wait on me.” She started to saunter back toward my dad, all eyes in the order line watched her every move. Sage was pretty riveting, especially sipping her shake through a straw.
“Don’t you need to …” I nodded toward the crowd. “You know, feed?”
She waved her hand in dismissal. “Oh, gosh no. I’ve been grazing all day. I really just wanted something to drink.”
I shook my head in exasperation. Tina finally joined us after getting the key to a restroom.
“I just met the nicest guy. He let me feed, right there by his car. So nice of him,” she gushed and waved to a dark-haired fellow standing next to a white Jeep. He looked a bit pale and dazed but otherwise returned her wave with enthusiasm.
“Are all guys in Seattle so nice?” she continued to chatter, making my dad squirm in his seat after we all got back into the car.
“Well, that depends on what you mean by nice. Do all guys offer to open a vein and let you feed in the parking lot of Dick’s? Then I would have to say no. You must have found the exception to the rule.”
She bounced lightly in the backseat, looking out the window and taking in the scenery. “He was just so nice,” she said again and I exchanged a look with my dad. I suspected her “nice” guy had been on something by the way she was suddenly so wired and chatty.
It was one thing to teach the value of clean living but as a vampire, we could only keep our living as clean as the blood we drank. If our meals were high as a kite, then …
There just hadn’t been time for Tina to make sure she was getting clean blood. Now she was loopy. I just hoped her friendly Seattle conquest wasn’t strung out on Ecstasy, because then things would get very interesting at Psi Phi House.
We arrived in record time. My dad practically threw the luggage out of the trunk.
“Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate your help. Want to come inside for some coffee?” I offered, not wanting him to drive home if he was tired.
“No, dear.” He kissed my forehead and moved back toward the driver’s side of the car. “I have an early morning tomorrow. Mom and I will stop by and see how you are doing this weekend. Maybe bring out Aunt Chloe.”
I waved to him and he was off. I looked back at Tina, who was staring up at the sky and softly singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” and Sage, who had removed her sandals and was walking across the front lawn, feeling the dew between her toes. No wonder he opted for escape. I wanted to escape. Smart man.
I loaded myself up with their luggage and entered the house. After two more trips, I had all of their stuff in the foyer. I showed the girls to an upstairs bedroom and then explained how they would sleep downstairs. Though Sage and Tina could handle the sun without instant spontaneous combustion, it was easier to have everyone sleeping in the basement behind the secret door. Not that Ileana or her maid cared about my concern for their health. The extra privacy interested them more.
I left them upstairs, putting away their clothes. I noted the only things they seemed to own were shorts, scanty tops and bikinis. It was going to be a mite chilly for them come fall. No one else was home and I wandered around aimlessly, peeking into Ileana’s bedroom to see how much progress she’d made in unpacking. It looked like a totally different room!
She’d moved some of the furniture out, I noted, to make room for her more personal items. Shaking my head, I shut the door. I chose not to deal with her rule-breaking at that moment. I was going to live in denial until I had a better idea of what I wanted to do.
I wandered back downstairs and sank into the fluffy couch in our living room and debated calling Thomas. It did not escape my attention that he hadn’t called my cell phone to yell at me for deserting him, so he must be very angry indeed. I decided to wait on that confrontation as well. I was one big mass of avoidance. That is, until I heard a car pull up to the house.
I rolled off the couch and peeked outside. A small transit van stopped by the sidewalk and my fellow sorority sisters emerged, laden down with bags upon bags of Nordstrom goodies. Lucy was laughing at something Ileana said, while Sophie, Ileana’s maid, struggled with several shoe boxes.
I bit my tongue in annoyance. Ileana hardly needed the Tribunal to buy her new clothes, but I was happy to see Lucy and Angie seemed to have a nice collection of packages. I noticed Carl had joined them, looking bored and stressed at the same time. How does one do such a thing? I wondered.
Piper jumped out with a single bag that I suspected held a pair of boots. Piper loved boots. I opened the door to welcome them home.
“Hey all!” I called from the door. Everyone looked up and a few called out a similar greeting. I hopped down the steps and offered my carrying services. Piper loaded me up with bags from the back of the van. Wow, they really went to town, I thought, after my second trip from the van to the house.
Once inside, all the girls carried their plunder upstairs to their rooms. I told them I would be up in a moment to see what they got and explained we had two new house sisters upstairs. Once they were out of ear shot, I asked Piper how things went.
She took my arm, steered me toward the back of the house into the housemother’s bedroom, now filled t
o the brim with Ileana’s packing trunks, and sat me down on the bed.
This did not bode well.
“That bad?” I guessed, watching her pace three feet either way, back and forth next to the bed.
She stopped a moment and looked me in the eye. “Should I start with the shoplifting or the threats to put a cap in Mrs. Durham’s ass?”
“Oh my,” was all I could say.
“We arrived promptly at closing time and met Durham at the concierge desk. After a very long and patronizing speech about the generosity of the Tribunal and the grace of vampires everywhere letting half-bloods exist, she told everyone to pick out exactly two things and meet back at the cash register.”
I started to interrupt but Piper waved me quiet.
“Well, I was hardly going to let her get away with that so I amended her statement and told the girls to pick out whatever they wanted, but they only had an hour to shop. They immediately split but Durham was pissed at me. I assured her that no one could possibly do too much damage in only an hour and she relented. Not at all gracefully, I might add.
“Anyway, she wandered off to get her own stuff and I wanted to pick up a pair of boots I noticed when we arrived. Then I started to hear a commotion across in cosmetics.”
I nodded at her, caught up in the story.
“I hurried over to the MAC counter, where Durham and Angie are screaming at each other—I thought they were about to duke it out, right there in front of the lipstick case. It seems Durham didn’t think cosmetics should be included in the shopping spree and Angie, who apparently is very fond of makeup, told her it should be included as part of a wardrobe because who would consider themselves completely dressed without lipstick?
“Anyway, Durham suggests to Angie, who just helped herself to the testers, that she looks like a streetwalker and she was doing her a favor by limiting her makeup accessibility.”
“Oh no,” I gasped.
“Oh yes,” Piper confirmed. “So, Lucy said there was no reason to get personal and Durham tells Lucy to shut up, which makes Angie call Durham a bleepin’ cow.”
I winced because I knew Piper was replacing more colorful vocabulary with “bleeping.” She noticed the look on my face and assured me, “Oh, it gets better.”
I was afraid of that.
“So I say let’s all calm down and Angie proclaims that she refuses to be in debt to a bleepin’ cow and therefore won’t be buying a thing. At the same time she started taking the clothes in her hand and shoving them under her shirt and in her sweat-pants. Like she’s just gonna walk on out of Nordstrom laden down with stolen goods and no one will dare stop her.”
In spite of the seriousness of the story, I started to giggle.
“I told everyone to continue shopping, since they don’t have much time left, and took Angie aside. I assured her that she could have whatever makeup she wants and I would be happy to ‘buy’ the clothes she has stuffed under her shirt so she won’t be indebted to Durham. After a few minutes, Angie agreed but not before announcing, very loudly, that if Mrs. Durham gets in her way again she’s gonna put a cap in her ass.”
“Piper, I don’t know what to say. How awful.” And in truth it did sound awful. But I couldn’t stop the giggles from escaping. I could easily picture Piper playing diplomat, all the while cursing me under her breath and trying to keep everyone from going postal.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” she warned me, but she was having a hard time keeping herself from giggling as well. Finally, she couldn’t contain her mirth any longer and we both laughed until we cried. She joined me on the bed, wiping the tears and smeared eyeliner off her cheeks.
“I am so sorry you had to go through that. I know Durham can be a pain, but I had no idea she would take it out on everyone. I figured she would wait until she saw me again.”
“Yeah, well, you thought wrong. How did it go in California?”
“I brought home the two half-bloods with no bloodshed if that’s what you mean.”
“Where’s Thomas?” she asked.
“He stayed behind. He’s going to talk to Cookie about the half-bloods and then head home.”
This technically wasn’t a lie because he would go to the beach house when it was dark and discover I’d really taken the girls and he would have to deal with the wrath of Cookie.
“Hmmmm,” she said, staring at me speculatively.
“And we kind of had a fight,” I admitted.
“I see. What kind of fight?”
“Oh Piper, it was awful,” I wailed. “We were making out in our room on this huge bed and he just stands up and is all ‘We’ve got to figure out a game plan’ and I’m all ‘What? We’ve got hours to kill before sunset’ and he’s ‘This isn’t the time or the place’ and I’m all, ‘Dude, this is totally the time and place’ and then”—I took a deep breath and wailed again—“then he called me immature!” I hiccupped dramatically for effect, waiting for Piper to console me.
“You tried to seduce him when you two were at work?” she asked, incredulously.
“Of course not. We weren’t at work at that moment. We were waiting. We had hours of waiting to do. And the mean guy at the reception desk was acting all icky toward me, saying I couldn’t stay and all. Just because I’m a half-blood.” Again I ended my tirade with a slight wail, waiting for Piper to agree with me.
“But you know vampires don’t like half-bloods,” she tried to reason with me.
“Piper!” I said in exasperation. “The point is that I was vulnerable and needed comfort from my boyfriend and he wouldn’t put out.”
“But he’s never put out. Why would that moment make things any different?”
“Aarghh. We had a private room, a big bed, no one to disturb us and hours to kill with no TV.”
“Oh, you didn’t have a television? Well, I guess that does change things a little bit.”
Sometimes I just wanted to bite Piper … really hard. But I refrained because she sounded like she was finally coming around.
“So out of the blue Thomas says you’re immature and that’s why he won’t do you?” I could tell Piper was struggling to understand but since she wasn’t there it was very hard for her to grasp the facts. The facts were I was totally right and Thomas was cruel and insensitive.
“Well, not really. I told him I wasn’t a virgin so what was the big deal anyway?”
Piper gave me a pained expression.
“Ouch,” she said.
“Yes, exactly. That’s what I thought.”
“I meant ouch for Thomas. That must have been nice to hear.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He’s an old-fashioned guy and is being totally respectful by waiting on the physical side of things. He’s training you and helping you to become a better Protector. He’s dating a half-blood, so I imagine he’s being ostracized by all the other vampires and his girlfriend screams she isn’t a virgin in his face when he won’t put out because he’s concerned about a mission to protect half-bloods, which is her responsibility in the first place. So yeah, I stand behind my ‘ouch.’ ”
I looked at Piper, somewhat dazed. Well, yeah, when you put it that way.
“Crap,” I whispered, dragging my hands through my hair.
Five
Piper left me with my shame. I guess she sensed it was time to let her logic sink in. I lay down on the bed, debating if I should grab a little sleep. I was used to sleeping only a couple of hours at a time. In order to graduate from high school, I had to be able to attend my day classes, so I learned to survive off of napping. Instead I decided to search out my sorority sisters. After all, they were my job. I was in the business of protecting them. It seemed natural to assume they might eke out a little gratitude and I could desperately use a pick-me-up.
I wandered upstairs and found Ileana going through her new purchases. She was giving orders to her maid to hang this, press that and put away the other. When she was satisfied everything would be accomplished
to her satisfaction, she brushed past me and headed downstairs.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” I asked the maid from the doorway, fed up with “Sophie, fetch this for me.”
“No mum,” she answered quietly, never tarrying from her task.
“Well for heaven’s sake, why not? You’re a human being and deserve to be treated with respect. Don’t you want more out of life than jumping up to do her”—I gestured my thumb in Ileana’s direction—“bidding?”
“My family has been in the service of the Romanavs for centuries. It is an honor to serve my lady.”
“Really?” I puzzled, wondering if a long-standing employee /employer relationship was really worth putting up with Ileana.
“Yes, my lady has been very good to my family.”
“Oh, do you have brothers and sisters who work for her as well?” I leaned against the door frame.
“No mum, I am an only child. Every daughter serves my lady. I do, and my mother, and her mother before her. It has always been so.”
“Wow, so your mom and grandma served Ileana’s mom and her grandmother?” Talk about a family business.
Sophie stopped her folding actions and looked at me in speculation, then turned back to her task. “As I said, my family has served the Romanavs for centuries.”
Well, okay then. I left her to her lady’s maid tasks and went in search of Carl.
Carl and I began our relationship hating each other. Back when I was first changed, he thought I was mocking him when he asked to see my fangs and I showed him my stainless steel fang headgear. But over the last eight months, we’d become almost friends. Actually, I think he still had a thing for Piper but she hadn’t shown any romantic interest in him after he was her date for Homecoming. She liked him well enough but wasn’t willing to date a vampire, and I couldn’t blame her. Relationships were tough enough without adding the whole Undead thing into the mix. I worked with Carl and over time, I managed to grow on him. Much like a fungus, he was fond of saying.
