“Because we all know what happens after prom,” Rachel whispered.
“Yeah.” Sally giggled with amusement. “You kids have fun.” She winked at me on her way out the door. What the hell had Rachel told her?
Rachel smiled. I checked my fucked-o-meter. The gauge was set firmly on “Seven ways from Sunday.” That seemed about right.
Rachel pulled up her dress and showed me her thigh. The wound was gone.
“It’s already healed,” she said.
“Mine always do,” I told her. “I don’t know why. Roger’s bites don’t heal like mine. Talbot tells me it’s an unusual ability for a vampire.”
She looked at me quizzically, dropping her dress back into place. “Talbot tells me that about most of my abilities, though,” I added.
She walked over to me casually. “Have you asked him about it?”
“No,” I answered. She was leaning close to me again. Her smell was different, less musky, and I couldn’t smell cinnamon anymore. I decided it wasn’t a perfume that she’d been wearing; it was something else, something that came and went. I didn’t ask, for the same reason I didn’t ask a lot of things. I was afraid that she might tell me, or worse, lift up her dress and show me.
“Why not?”
“Because I was worried that he might tell me.” I backed away from her, pausing at the doorway.
“You want to know about that bullet, don’t you?” She was just full of surprises.
“What bullet?” I asked.
“The magic one you’re holding in your hand.” Rachel pointed. “Or is it just a party favor?”
I looked down and sighed. The bullet glowed even more brightly now, like it was charging back up, replenishing itself.
“I was going to call Magbidion. He’s kind of my mage on retainer.”
“Can I see it?” She held out her hand. Since I had no reason other than blatant paranoia not to hand it over, I gave her the bullet. She held it up to her eye and put a hand on my shoulder. We both got popped by static electricity. “Ow. Yep, it’s magic. I’m no expert on magic bullets, but it’s made of silver. My guess is that it’s enchanted to kill lycanthropes. One of those swirly symbols kind of looks like a rune I’ve seen used to represent them.”
“How do you know all this?”
There was mischief in her eyes. “Because, unlike some people, I ask questions.”
“Yeah, but I’m a vampire. How come you know more about it than me?”
“I don’t jump blindly into anything. I do research. There’s a place called the Irons Club. It’s really exclusive and a lot of vampire thralls meet down there and play golf when their Masters are asleep.”
“And they just told you all this stuff?”
“It took a little doing,” she said, leaning in close to nuzzle my neck, “but you know how persuasive I can be and how curious I am.”
“Remember what curiosity did to the cat.”
“I’m not a cat,” she answered. “I hate cats.”
“I’d noticed. You know, your sister is going to wake up about an hour after sunset. I should talk to her about things.” Rachel opened her mouth, but I shushed her. “Not about us, if there is an us…which there isn’t.” Shit. “I need to explain. I have to break up with her. She’s dead now and I don’t date corpses. I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work.”
“She talked you into it, huh? What an idiot. There is no quicker way to lose your undead boyfriend than turning off the body heat.” Rachel turned her back to me and looked over her shoulder in my direction. “Unzip me? I want to change out of this before I get it dirty.” Reluctantly, I did as she asked. She was wearing a strange-looking bra underneath it.
“What is that?”
She looked down. “A backless bra,” she said with a smirk. “I can’t go braless all the time, silly. I’d sag.”
“What was I just talking about?” I sighed.
“My sister,” Rachel answered. She bit her bottom lip thoughtfully and then stepped out of the dress. I watched her put it on a hanger and pull a plastic bag over it. I was still staring at her when she took off her shoes. She had a small frog tattoo just above her ankle. It was cute and dainty and I seemed to remember it from somewhere, as if I had previously seen one just like it.
“You like frogs?” I asked.
“Better than cats,” she answered mysteriously. She glanced at me as if waiting to see if I had any other questions, then pulled on a new pair of jeans and a silk blouse.
“You were talking about my sister,” she repeated. “She’s going to be really pissed off when you dump her. Does she have any idea that it’s coming?”
“It’s what happened to the one before her,” I answered defensively. “Look, I think she knows, but either way I’m sure Talbot will have told her that it’s likely.”
Rachel shook her head as she pulled a pair of socks out of a shopping bag. They were followed by a pair of new tennis shoes. “So in other words, she’s probably in denial. You’re not one of those guys who tosses ‘I love you’ grenades around, are you?”
“I told her she was a moist warm tightness with the right attachments.”
Rachel looked exceedingly amused. “Holy shit! You did not tell my sister that.” She stopped laughing and looked up at me. “You did tell her that? Oh my God!” She sat down on the dressing chair and tried to catch her breath. Amusement was not the reaction I had been expecting. Anger would have been my bet, maybe a little dash of outrage, but not this. It was a clear sign that I did not understand the modern teenager.
“What does she expect?” Rachel continued. “You’re a fucking vampire. You eat people.” Her comments weren’t accusations. I might have felt better about it if they had been.
“I have to go across to the club and talk to Roger,” I said, changing the subject. I needed to ask him about the hockey game, maybe find some way to mention Brian. I also wanted to be there whenever Tabitha woke up. “Look, just hang out here. Watch a movie, listen to CDs, just…whatever. I’ll be back.” Applauding my mental fortitude, I left, walking up the stairs, out through the lobby, and across to the Demon Heart without a backward glance.
Since it was a few minutes before noon, I caught fire again on the way. Catching fire always reminds me of that one horrible week in California, a week full of demons and hellfire. “Fricking El Segundo,” I griped.
10
TABITHA:
RELATIONSHIP ISSUES
When I awoke, I was in Eric’s bed again and he was standing over me. “You’re up early,” he remarked.
“Hello to you too,” I said with a smile. I expected him to kiss me. Instead he pointed at the shower. “You smell,” he said bluntly. “Go take a shower.”
There was an odor in the air, like natural gas or methane mixed with pee. I sniffed my forearm. “That’s me?”
Eric pulled me off of the bed by my arm and dragged me to the shower. Too stunned to react, I just lay there while he turned the shower on and pushed me inside. I was still wearing my leather outfit. He didn’t notice. Instead, he stripped off his shoes and stepped into the shower. The cold water slowly became warmer as he removed my clothing. I closed my eyes and imagined him delicately unsnapping each snap and kissing the soft white flesh underneath.
“My darling,” my imaginary Eric said. “I love you. Now we can be together, creatures of the night, unstoppable, unquenchable; the world is ours.”
I opened my eyes and looked at the real Eric as he roughly undressed me.
He met my gaze. “These clothes are ruined. You won’t be able to get the smell out.”
I closed my eyes again and resumed my fantasy. In my mind, we made love passionately, more passionately than ever before and as we reached climax, Eric said he loved me again and again. He whispered it in my ear and then we both sank our fangs into each other, our minds touched, we were one.
In reality, I could feel him rubbing a bar of soap over me. It might have been sensuous except that his touch was coarse and
businesslike. His hands did not linger and no gentle kisses were forthcoming. He washed my hair three times and I began to smell blood. I’d started crying without realizing it. I was getting tired of crying.
“Stop crying,” Eric ordered. Out of reflex, I did. “It’s called corpse sweat,” he continued. “Did it happen last night? I mean, last day…” Frustration filled his voice. “I mean when you woke up last night did you stink?”
At first I didn’t answer. Talbot’s voice was playing in my head repeating all the things he had said the night before and I didn’t like what he was saying. I must have started moving my head from side to side, because Eric took it as a response and continued talking.
“Good. Then it might not happen again. You were probably playing with your powers. Most vampires only get the sweats when they discover new talents. Some get them every night. I don’t get them at all. Anybody I’ve ever heard of that had corpse sweat on the first night has to deal with it every night. Still, it’s too early to tell. You probably ought to sleep naked on a plastic sheet or get one of the girls to move you once you fall asleep. Otherwise you might get corpse sweat on your sheets and whatever you’re wearing.”
He picked me up in his arms and carried me to the bed. Thankfully, someone had already changed the sheets. The Eric behind my closed eyelids made love to me again on that bed and promised to never leave me. In reality, though, I felt myself being toweled off and opened my eyes. The look on Eric’s face said everything I needed to know. There I was, naked, in all my glory. According to the other girls, I looked better than I ever had, and he looked at me like I was a chore. There was no hunger there at all. He turned away from me and dropped the towel on the floor, then began to remove his shirt, peeling the wet cloth from his body. I guess that was a chore too.
Rage came over me. He’d treated me and the shirt with equal disdain, as if I were no more than an article of clothing to be tossed away and forgotten. Nobody forgets me! I leapt at him, my vision tinting red, claws and fangs at the ready.
One moment he was there and the next he wasn’t. I had no idea where he had gone until I felt him behind me. Both his arms went underneath mine and he locked his fingers behind my neck. Smiling, I popped my claws and scratched his face, opening four short furrows in his cheek. He released me more out of shock than surprise and I snarled at him.
The wounds on his cheek healed as he began to do his little fast-moving trick, only this time I did it too. He was still faster than me, but I was quick enough to keep him from getting a good grip.
“You do look nice,” he told me.
“What?”
“You look very pretty.” He looked deep into my eyes, and suddenly I couldn’t move; I couldn’t react. I was frozen, staring into his eyes, mesmerized like any number of Dracula’s victims in the movies. Had Talbot told me vampires could do that? I couldn’t remember. I pushed back, tried to grab Eric the way he had me, but either I was too inexperienced or he was too strong. Those beautiful blue eyes sucked at my mind, pulling me deeper. They seemed to glow and flash, not a red glow, but a strange warm blue overwhelming color. I struggled, but his hold on me felt like a vise. He moved with casual menace and the look was back…that look that said I was no more important than ruined bedsheets, possibly less.
He wrapped his hands around my throat and squeezed. I couldn’t move. He forced me down onto the clean silk sheets, never breaking eye contact. Inside I was screaming at myself, trying to move a finger, a toe, anything.
“In case you have forgotten,” he began in a calm and steady voice far more frightening than any time he’d ever yelled, “I am the biggest, baddest motherfucking vampire that you will ever meet. Nothing has changed just because you have claws. Any stupid crap you think up has already been tried. I created you. I made you undead and I can make you ‘dead’ dead, too. I am your vampiric father or sire or whatever lame-ass little tagline you wannabes use. Any vampire power you can think of, I have it and I either use it better than you or I don’t need to use it because I have a better way of doing the same thing. Do you understand me?”
At first I couldn’t speak, and then it was like a ghostly force had relaxed its hold on my body, but just enough for me to answer the question. “Let me go, you…you bastard!”
“Say, ‘Yes, Eric.’ “
“Yes, Eric.” I replied. What was I doing? I felt my jaws lock again, but I tried to scream anyway. Nothing happened.
“Now I want you to pay attention to what I’m going to tell you.” His words trailed off; sadness suddenly filled his eyes. As quickly as he had evaded my claws, he was on the other side of the room. He leaned up against the dresser, cursing. After testing myself gingerly to make sure I could move, I sat up slowly, confused.
“This is not how I want to do this, Tabitha.”
I got up and walked toward him. He tensed, but I kept coming. When I reached him, he glared at me.
“Look, Tabitha, just back off.”
“You’re standing between me and my underwear, Eric. Do I have to be naked the whole time I listen to you? If I am, will this end differently?” I tried to keep calm, but I was certain he could hear the anger in my voice. That sorry son of a bitch was going to dump me. What the hell was wrong with him? Hadn’t I performed every sick act that his dirty little mind could think of? Did I do too much, too little? It was beyond me. The idea of it was too much for me to wrap my brain around. I felt like this all had to be happening to another person.
Eric slid away from the dresser and I opened the top drawer, my panty drawer. The smell of lilacs hit me as I opened it. I kept lilac-scented sachets in my underwear drawers to keep my underwear smelling nice. With my heightened senses most of them now smelled too strongly of lilacs for me to put on.
I stopped, taking a good look at the open drawer. It was filled with panties that were exactly what a man would like to see me wear. None of them were comfortable. They were lingerie, not real underwear. Digging through them, I found one pair of white panties that weren’t crotchless, lacy, or a thong. I put them on. The next drawer down had my bras in it. It was like déjà vu. I had the same problem with the bras. They all seemed to have snap-off cups, too much lace, or no support whatsoever. A little digging revealed one plain beige bra. I put that on too.
“Your underwear doesn’t match.”
I glared at Eric; my expression must have spoken volumes because he literally flinched. “What the hell did you just say?”
He flinched again and walked to the far side of the room. I suddenly realized this was no different from all the times he’d insisted he wouldn’t turn me, sworn that he didn’t make vampires anymore. I knew exactly how to handle him. I grabbed a see-through bra out of the second drawer and threw it on the bed. I grabbed the matching pair of panties out of the top drawer and threw them on the bed too. I added a pair of black high-heeled shoes and a little leather choker the same color. “Is that what you want me to put on? What you’d like to see me in? Is that what you want?”
Eric shrugged.
“Because all you have to do is say it. You don’t even have to tell me you’re sorry. You just have to tell me what to do!”
I started crying again, this time on purpose, though the smell made me hungry. Streaks of red ran down my face and onto the bra. I took it off and threw it down on the floor. His eyes went involuntarily to my breasts. Poor Eric.
“Tell me you want me to wear something sexy tonight! Tell me you want to screw me, to sink your fangs into my jugular and drink my blood when you come. Tell me why we can’t do that anymore. The only thing that’s changed is I’m like you now. I’m a vampire. I’m not warm and alive, but I am still here. If you want a living girl to join us so that there will be some body heat, tell me and I’ll go out and find one. You can pick one, it doesn’t matter…just tell me…”
I threw myself into his arms, half worried he would push me away, but some emotion, some feeling of shame or guilt, possibly even some strange version of love kept him from
doing so. He closed his arms around me.
His chest was damp and cold against my skin, but I didn’t care. The world was a cold place anyway now that I was a vampire. I had thought it would be the other way around despite what Eric had always said, that I’d feel hot because I was at room temperature, but it definitely didn’t work that way and I didn’t know or care why. After a long moment, he kissed me on the forehead.
“Wear the lacy black set with fishnet stockings and a garter belt. Wear white over the top of it. I know it will show through; that’s okay. Wear those strappy high-heeled shoes you have and that little white jacket thing with the short sleeves. Roger and I are going out tonight. You can’t come. It’s a guy thing, so don’t freak out on me.”
I didn’t smile, because he might have thought I was laughing at him, at the way he’d given in, but I was definitely smiling on the inside. Talbot could say whatever he wanted, but Eric loved me. He just needed to talk tough, make demands, and be in control…typical male.
“You may be asleep again before I get back, but if so,” he paused, “if so you’ll wake up next to me tomorrow.”
Eric could be as macho as he wanted, but when it came down to it, he’d give in. He wanted to give in; he was just afraid…and he loved me. I wanted him to say it, but I knew he wouldn’t. Not yet. He kissed me again. This time he kissed my cheeks where the blood had begun to dry.
“I want you to help Talbot keep an eye on things tonight. I broke Marilyn’s arm earlier and I need you to help out. You might have to dance tonight because Roger’s happy ass keeps giving Froggy the night off. Can you handle that?”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure if I could or not, but for him I would try almost anything that might give him time to realize what I already knew. It might take longer than it had to convince him to turn me, but I had time, buckets of time. When I was human, time had been the enemy; now, time was on my side.
He held my arms and pushed me slowly away from him, as far as he could without letting go. “Maybe this will work out, Tabitha. It probably won’t. It never has before, but…but I suppose that it might be possible. We can try a human in the bed with us, but it will have to be a girl. I don’t like to feed on guys.”
Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires Page 45