Not Dead Yet

by Jenn Burke

  “I know the core of you,” I continued. “So if you’re trying to convince me you’re one bad mood away from ripping out my throat, fuck you. That’s not going to work on me.” I squinted at him. “So all this hot and cold, back and forth bullshit—that was to keep me at a distance?”

  “And it worked awesomely.”

  I chuckled at his sarcastic tone. “You like me too much to pretend to hate me.”

  “No.”

  “Oh yes. You like me.”

  “You’re crazy. And I mean that sincerely.” He stared at me a moment. “Did you see my fangs? Here—take a good look.” He opened his mouth, and his canine teeth extended.

  “That’s...” I tilted my head. “Weird, but kind of cool. Can I touch?”

  “Are you serious?” The words weren’t quite as crisp as his normal speaking voice. I guessed talking around fangs was tough.

  I walked over and angled my head so I could get a better look at those fascinating and deadly parts of him. I pressed a finger to one—not the pointy part, but the front of it. It felt...like a tooth. “So, like, do they grow? Or is this whole thing just retracted into your jaw?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Are they like straws?”

  “You ask the strangest questions.”

  “Well, I mean, it would be a lot less messy if you just stuck them in and the blood went—” I made a sucking noise. “Like a giant mosquito.”

  “Thanks. That comparison makes me feel so much better about myself.”

  I patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’re much less annoying than a mosquito.”

  Hudson smiled and his fangs retracted. “You—I don’t get you. You should be terrified of me.”

  “Why? You’re Hudson.”

  His next breath sounded none too steady, and then he turned to retrieve his mug. He sucked back the remainder of its contents, and when he spoke again, his voice was rough and uneven. Gone was the openness of a moment before—clearly we were back to the emotionally distant portion of his personality. I bit back a sigh.

  “I need you to stay here today.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite—” I winced. “Sorry. Bad choice of words. Why?”

  “I’ll be asleep, but the kid might wake up.”

  “I thought you had to train yourself to do that?”

  “Right after turning, your system is messed up. Usually a new vampire is out for a good twenty-four to thirty-six hours, but I’ve seen newbies wake up within a few hours of the change.”

  “And?”

  “I’ll be in the same room with him, but that doesn’t mean I’ll wake up if he does.”

  “What’ll happen if he wakes up during the day and you don’t?”

  “I doubt he’ll kill me, but it could get messy.” At my grimace, he gave a cold smile. “Animals, remember? All that’s going to matter when he wakes up is blood.”

  “What the hell do you expect me to do if—”

  “Bring blood. There’s some in the fridge. It’s pig’s blood, but it’ll do. He’ll be hungry enough not to care. Warm it up in a mug and—”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “Not to me or him.”

  I stared at him for a few moments, and then wrinkled my nose and gave in. “Ugh. Fine.”

  “Thanks.”

  Yeah, a simple thanks wasn’t enough. I wasn’t sure what would be, though.

  Chapter Twelve

  In theory, I retreated to Hudson’s guest bedroom to get some sleep in the last few hours before dawn. In reality, I stared at the dark ceiling as my mind whirled through...well, everything. The murders, the stakeout, the almost-something moment in the car, the haunting, the death of the kid.

  But mostly, my mind was stuck on Hudson. Hudson with blood on his mouth. Hudson’s sharp and deadly fangs. Hudson’s eyes glowing yellow.

  When I was standing in the kitchen with him, musing on the differences and similarities between the old non-vampire Hudson and the new blood-sucking version, it had been easy to deny my shivers of fear and focus on him. What he needed, which was reassurance and understanding. And his teeth had been kind of cool. But now, in the dark? My lizard brain was fully awake and making very important, very pertinent observations.

  Hudson had killed the kid in the alley. Accidentally, yes, but the fact was he’d killed him with the weapons in his mouth. And he’d admitted to killing his—his sire, and all of the other vampires in his group.

  So by his own admission—and the actions I’d witnessed—Hudson was a killer. And he had the same spiky, awful silhouette as Meredith’s murderer. Despite all my arguments in his favor earlier, all my attempts to convince myself he wasn’t responsible—was I wrong? Was I that far off? Had Hudson changed that much?

  I’d seen the darkness in him—the negativity I chalked up to resentment at my unaging appearance. How egotistical. It had never been about me. It had been about him resenting himself, hadn’t it? That was clear from his body language when we’d spoken in the kitchen, the way he’d referred to other vampires as “they,” and his confession that he’d never wanted me to know.

  Hudson hated what he’d become.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed the back of my hand to my lips. After a minute spent shoving the emotions down, I sniffed and opened my eyes, dashing away the wetness that had escaped. I had to look at this logically.

  Everything I’d thought about Hudson’s possible involvement in the murders still rang true. He was too smart to invite me along if he thought there was any chance that I’d recognize his shadow form. Therefore, he didn’t know his shadow form would match the murderer’s. Therefore...

  He didn’t know the murderer was a vampire?

  I bolted upright just as a knock sounded on the guest room door and Hudson poked his head into the room. When he saw me sitting up, he pushed the door open wider. “What is it?”

  “The killer’s a vampire. It makes total sense.”

  But Hudson was already shaking his head. “Not possible. When did Meredith’s murder happen?”

  “Afterno—” I grimaced. “Shit.”

  “After you told me my shadow form matched the murderer’s, it crossed my mind too. But the timing doesn’t work.”

  “Could he have trained himself to be awake during the day? Like you did?”

  Hudson leaned against the doorjamb. “I was highly motivated. And I never tried to be awake during the middle of the day, or for any length of time, only for an hour or so before Pike woke up.”

  “He might have—”

  “Instead of strangling her, he would have drained her.”

  “That would be way more notable than strangling her,” I pointed out. “Maybe he didn’t want to leave that sort of clue.”

  Hudson made a dismissive noise. “That murder was always going to be high profile. It didn’t matter how he killed her—exsanguination would be weird, yeah, but it’s not like anyone would scream ‘vampire’ if he’d done it. And she was prey. Food.”

  I frowned. “I don’t get it.”

  He moved into the room and sat on the edge of the bed, a good distance between us. “Vampires don’t walk away from food, because they never know when they’ll find more prey. Get it now? He would have sucked her dry because she was there.”

  An image of Hudson doing just that to the kid rose in my brain. I don’t know if I made a noise, or if Hudson had weird vampire brain-reading mojo now, but his expression fell. In an instant, he went from the confident, I know my shit cop to a man who wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “I was just coming to let you know I need to head downstairs. Sun’s almost up.” He stood.

  “Wait.”

  “It’s okay, you know,” he said, his back to me. “I figured your reaction in the kitchen was an anomaly. Once you had time to think—”

  “O
nce I had time to think, I came to the same conclusion I did before. You’re not a monster.”

  “I ripped out the kid’s throat.”

  “By accident.”

  He spun back to face me, one arm gesturing at nothing. “It doesn’t matter! I should have been more aware of my surroundings. I shouldn’t have taken him into the alley, for fuck’s sake. I should have treated him like—” His voice broke. “Like a person, brought him home, showed him gratitude beyond just—” He closed his eyes, his breath ragged. After a few moments of quiet, he whispered, “I fucked up. I fucked up so bad.”

  I kicked off the covers and got out of bed. I’d taken off my pants, but I was still wearing my shirt and underwear—and I didn’t care about that bit of vulnerability I was showing Hudson. He was showing me so much more.

  I cupped his cheeks and tugged until he looked at me. “Listen,” I said softly. “You did fuck up. There’s no getting around that. You picked that kid out of the crowd knowing what you were going to do was a risk.”

  The acceptance of my words, the truth in them, shone in his eyes. “I did,” he admitted.

  “I fucked up too.”

  “I know I said—I accused you of—but I didn’t—”

  “No, you were right.” I felt it in my gut—this wasn’t solely on Hudson. There were so many things I could have done differently. Like not following them into the alley in the first place. Not letting my surprise and fear override my common sense. “We both had a hand in what happened tonight. We’ve both got to try to—” I sighed. “Fix it isn’t right. I don’t think there’s any fixing this. But we need to help him.”

  “I know.” Hudson swiped a hand over his face. “I will.”

  “We will,” I corrected. “How much time have you got before sun up?”

  He glanced at his watch. “About fifteen minutes. Why?”

  “Just stand there for a second.”

  I slipped into the otherplane and eyed his shadow form. It was murky—maybe a bit darker than other people I’d observed from this plane, but not jagged or horrible. I was kind of relieved to discover I wasn’t completely unobservant.

  “It wasn’t a vampire,” Hudson insisted when I rematerialized.

  “Uh-huh,” I said dismissively. “Now go all vamp.”

  He arched a brow. “Vamp?”

  “You know.” I waved a hand around my face. “Glowy eyes, fangs. Vamp.” When nothing about Hudson’s appearance changed, I sighed. “Humor me.”

  He drew in a breath, and suddenly his brown eyes were yellow, and his fangs poked over his lower lip.

  “Perfect. Hold that thought.”

  I slipped into the otherplane again—and triumph had never been so terrifying. My heart skipped a beat as I took in Hudson’s jagged, awful shadow form, with the deep, dark holes where his glowing eyes should be. When I stepped back into the living plane, I was trembling. I couldn’t help it.

  Hudson dropped his vampness immediately. “What?”

  “Argue it all you want, but he was definitely a vampire. You could be twins.”

  Hudson opened his mouth—to protest no doubt—when an alarm on his watch chimed. “Shit.”

  “Bedtime?”

  “Yeah. We’re not done talking about this, though.”

  As I said, we could talk about it all he wanted. Argue it too. But it wouldn’t change the facts.

  Meredith Montague had been murdered by a vampire—a vampire who not only had been abroad during daylight but had also ignored his instinct to feed. But why?

  What could a vampire want more than blood?

  * * *

  I waited until it was a decent hour and the coffee I made kicked in before calling Lexi. When she picked up, I said, “Vampires are real.”

  There was a long pause. “Have you been drinking?”

  “What? No. Why would you—Did you hear what I said?”

  She stifled a yawn. I couldn’t remember what her shift was this week, but I suspected nights. I’d probably caught her just before she headed to bed. “You said vampires are real. Yeah, and?”

  I blinked. And blinked again. “You knew?”

  “Of course I knew.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Well, Great-Grandma tried to have The Talk with you, and then Grandma, and then Mom. By the time my turn rolled around, I figured there wasn’t any point, so I didn’t bother.”

  “What talk?”

  “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” Lexi quoted.

  “Oh. That talk.” I squirmed uncomfortably. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know, it’s just that...”

  “You didn’t want to know.”

  “No,” I insisted.

  “Yes,” she tossed back at me.

  “Fine. Maybe. But now I do want to know.” Mostly.

  “Why? How’d you find out about vampires?”

  “Hudson.”

  “Okay, how’d he know?”

  “He is one.”

  There was a pause. “I’m sorry, what?”

  I told her about the night’s events, and she was appropriately shocked. That made me feel a little better.

  “I don’t know much about vampires,” she said, “but I do know newbies can be unpredictable. Watch yourself with Vamp Junior. And find out his name. Jesus.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And make sure he’s properly fed when he wakes up. Also check his wound—I expect it’ll be healed but—”

  “I got it.”

  Suddenly Lexi chuckled. “It just hit me. Hudson’s like this guy from an old TV show about a vampire detective trying to recover his lost soul—”

  “Vampires don’t have souls?”

  “No, that’s bullshit. Vampires technically aren’t dead, either—they trade their natural human life force for a magical one the instant before they die.”

  “Hudson said he died.”

  “Well, he’s wrong.”

  “You can go ahead and tell him that.”

  “Sure, next time I see him.”

  “So do you think it’s possible that a vampire killed Meredith in the middle of the afternoon?”

  “I honestly have no idea, hon. I’m sorry. Vampires are notoriously secretive—”

  “You don’t say.”

  “—and not much for socializing with non-vampires.”

  “I’m shocked, I tell you.”

  “It’s all about survival, right? The less anyone knows about them, the harder it is to defend against them or hunt them down. I know there are some vampire bars in town, but I wouldn’t recommend visiting one. They can be kinda rough.”

  An image of Hudson’s fangs flashed through my brain and, yeah, okay. No visiting a vampire bar.

  “If Hudson says it’s not possible,” she continued, “then it’s probably not. He’s now the resident expert on vampires.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “Except he’s been living in vampiric isolation for twenty years. Maybe he’s just going by what we all ‘know’ from movies and books and shit. Because it was a vampire, Lex. Had to be.”

  Lexi sighed. “If you say so. How are you doing? Feel better?”

  “Yeah.” I let out a slow breath. “Okay, so...if I wanted to learn more about paranormal stuff...”

  “I’ve got a book you can read.”

  “Cool. Thanks.”

  I still wasn’t sure I really wanted to know, but I had a feeling I was going to have to learn about all of this shit, anyway.

  We chatted for a little longer about how things were going with her. No Marissa sightings, thank god, and she said she felt pretty good. Not a hundred percent, not perfectly happy, but content with her decision. Accepting of it. She sounded lighter than she had in ages, which told me
that the breakup had been the right call. Especially after the extent of Marissa’s betrayal became clear. I didn’t mention the pending lab tests and neither did Lexi. I think we were both pretending they didn’t exist until the results were in.

  What else could we do?

  After saying goodbye and promising to call later, I explored Hudson’s house. I took my time, since I had the luxury of snooping in corporeal form without any chance of interruption. I found a small wooden box of photos in the dining room—but despite my desire to unearth more about this new version of Hudson, I discovered I didn’t have the fortitude to rifle through them. What if I saw pictures of Hudson with other men? What if I saw pictures of Hudson with me?

  I wasn’t sure which scenario would be harder to take. Being reminded of the good times—particularly when I now knew how his life developed—would be wrenching. Discovering that his life had evolved and moved on without me would be even harder.

  I mean, I knew it had. Hell, I’d gotten an eyeful last night. But Hudson’s tryst with the kid didn’t bug me too much, probably because it had been so casual. Nothing about the encounter had had permanent written on it—until I startled him, anyway. Pictures of Hudson with another guy would mean they shared a relationship, which meant in-jokes and shared history. Dreams and secrets.

  It was easier when I’d all but forgotten about him. I didn’t have to confront the weight of all those missed years, missed opportunities, missed connection.