She folds her arms and leans back in her chair. “Be careful.”
“I will.” I know she’s not talking about my safety. I put my feet up on the next chair and sip my beer, which tastes odd considering it’s almost six in the morning.
Regina finally sighs, shoves her chair back from the table, and slinks through the doorway to the hall.
When her footsteps fade, I walk to the door and peer around the corner into the studio. Shane is inside the control room jamming to the schlock-metal riffs as he programs the system to play an hour of paid programming after his broadcast. He’s facing the other direction, so he doesn’t see me watching.
I pull back and shut the door, then turn for the stairs.
Figures. I’ve finally convinced myself he won’t hurt me, and now I have a bigger, more realistic worry.
That I’ll hurt him.
17
Waiting for the Miracle
“We’ll start with the bands you liked when you were alive.”
I lower my voice at the end of the sentence. Probably not necessary, given the volume of the new Nine Inch Nails CD grinding out of the store’s speakers. Record & Tape Traders is holding a midnight madness sale, thus allowing me to bring Shane here for an after-dark lesson.
His gaze wanders over the selection of T-shirts and posters on the store’s wall. He won’t look at the CDs in the bin next to us. The major bands are in alphabetical order, but the miscellaneous ones at the beginning of each letter are all mixed up.
I guide him over to the G’s. “You remember Green Day, right?” I hold up their first major release, [i]Dookie,[/i] feeling like a remedial math teacher with a flash card.
“One of my favorites. 1994.” He takes the CD case and caresses it like a Ming vase.
“In 2000 they came out with Warning, which got critical acclaim, though some of their fans thought it wasn’t punk enough. But everyone’s got to grow up sometime, right? Except you, of course.”
The notion makes Shane smile a little, as I figured it might. Staying young and surly is probably the only thing he truly loves about being a vampire. He doesn’t reach for Warning, though.
“But the big one,” I continue, “was American Idiot in September 2004.” I display the CD, which features a hand grenade in the shape of a bleeding human heart. “One of the most important releases of this millennium.”
Shane hesitates before reaching for the CD. “Why?”
“First of all, the music is amazing. It’s a rock opera.”
“Hmm.” He turns it over and smooths the plastic wrapper—carefully, as if it might be covered in anthrax.
“But its influence was more than musical. It was released right before the elections. Green Day was part of this movement in pop music trying to mobilize young people to vote. And it worked. College kids lined up at the polls on Election Day—at your old school, some waited as long as eight hours in the rain.”
Shane continues the blank look he began around the middle of my speech. “Is Bill Clinton still president?”
I stare at him, the severity of his fossilization finally slamming my gut. Then the corner of his mouth twitches.
I huff in relief. “You son of a bitch.”
“Psych,” he says. “I’m not that dead. Yet.” He taps the CD against his palm. “Also, I heard Green Day did a rock opera but never bothered to check it out. I’ll try this, but don’t expect miracles.”
I beckon him down the aisle, past a group of multiply pierced teenage boys arguing over whether AFI is a true emo band.
Shane shoots past me, toward the P’s, and picks up Prince’s Purple Rain CD. “I used to have this on vinyl. That movie inspired me to learn the guitar.” He gazes through the far wall. “I took my first girlfriend to see it.”
His faint smile makes me wonder what Prince’s royal hotness inspired Shane’s girlfriend to do that night. I pick up another copy and check the issue date—1984. I was still in diapers.
Back to the nineties. I lead him to the M’s. “I’ve heard you play Morphine on your show.”
His face lights up. “You like them?”
“Baritone sax, two-string bass, and a drum. Their sound is detached and ironic yet somehow sensual.” Ew, I sound like a rock critic. “1993’s Cure For Pain is some of the smokiest, sexiest music I’ve ever heard.” I pull out one of their newer CDs, and this time Shane grabs it, handing me the others to hold.
“Are they still together?”
“The lead singer died in ninety-nine.”
Shane looks at me, stricken. “Mark Sandman died?”
“Heart attack during a concert in Rome.”
“That sucks.” He frowns as he examines the track list. “I liked him.”
I inch closer. “Why does it bother you that he died?”
Shane scrunches his face at me. “Shouldn’t it bother everyone when someone dies?”
“Last night a car crash killed four people outside of town. Does that bother you as much?”
He shakes his head. “I didn’t know those people.”
“You didn’t know Mark Sandman.”
“It’s different.” He runs his thumb over the corners of the CD. “I felt like I knew him from his music.”
“What else bothers you about it?”
Shane scratches his neck and looks away. “The world lost something when he died.”
I point to the Morphine sign in the bin. “We haven’t lost him. We can listen to him any time we want.”
“We can’t hear the stuff he hasn’t written yet. Everything he never did, it all died with him.”
“Yes!” I clasp Shane’s hand. “Listen to what you just said. You’re thinking about all the Morphine albums that will never happen. As if you could learn to care about new music. As if you could learn, period.”
He curls his thumb around my hand. “Why do you care so much about what I care about?”
“I don’t want you to live like this forever, stuck in 1995. You’re not happy now, and as time goes on you’ll be less happy.” I tighten my grip. “I don’t want you to fade.”
Even under the fluorescent light his pale blue eyes seem to glow when he looks at me that way. The music growls above us as he leans over to kiss me.
For some reason, I keep thinking the kisses will become routine, that each one couldn’t possibly be better or different than its predecessors.
I am wrong.
I like being wrong.
I thread my hand through Shane’s hair and pull him into a deeper kiss. One of the teens behind me murmurs, “Yeah, dude, hit that.” We ignore him.
An adult voice beside us says, “Please tell me you’re off the clock.”
We break apart to see Elizabeth. I almost don’t recognize her in casual wear, though even in jeans and a V-neck T-shirt, her body could make a moldy cadaver sit up and beg.
“I’m tutoring Shane on new music.”
“He looks like an attentive student.” She winks at me, which I take as a positive sign.
“Good sale, huh?” I tilt my head to read the CDs in her hand. The top one is a collection of Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes. “Franklin and I are about to close a cross-promotional deal with the store. They just have to work it out with headquarters to make sure they can align with more than one station.”
Shane and Elizabeth, instead of listening to my fascinating speech on radio business, are giving each other flat, steady glares, like enemy cats separated by a window.
I try to make nice. “So, Elizabeth, thanks for giving the va—the DJs a chance to survive.”
Her eyes narrow, still locked on Shane’s. “They’d survive without the station. Someone will always take care of them. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Make sure we rest easy in the arms of the Control?” Shane looks like he wants to rinse his mouth after the last two words.
She waits for a pair of magenta-haired college girls to pass. “Many humans would long for such a comfortable retirement.”
&nbs
p; “Comfort? In one of their prisons, feeding off blood bank leftovers until they’re so weak they can barely walk?”
“They’re not prisons, they’re refuges.”
“What kind of refuge locks its residents inside?” He smacks his forehead in mock surprise. “Oh, wait, I forgot. The doors unlock during the day in case anyone wants to shuffle off their immortal coil.”
She glares at him and speaks in a tight, hushed voice. “Without the Control’s retirement program, where would all those poor old vampires go when the world is too much for them?”
“Please. Save it for someone who doesn’t know better. And this Skywave takeover threat had better be about money, not about finding an excuse to ‘retire’ the six of us.”
“Of course. It’s just business.”
“So when the station turns a profit,” Shane says, “you’ll leave us alone.”
She laughs and runs her fingers through her shaggy, Jennifer-Aniston-second-season-of-Fn’ewA hair. “We’re so far in the red, it would take a miracle to bring it back by the end of the decade, much less the end of the summer.”
“A miracle, huh?” Shane takes the CDs from me and loops an arm over my shoulder. “Guess we’d better get to work on that.”
On the drive back to the station, Shane doesn’t speak, just stares out the window, turning his new CDs over in his hands. Even in a stack of three, they’re in alphabetical order.
His silence gives me a chance to ponder our encounter with Elizabeth. Shane said that a steady diet of bank blood weakens a vampire, but Elizabeth seems awfully vibrant for someone who claims to follow the Red Cross Plan.
As we pull onto the long gravel driveway, I finally break the silence. “How do you know so much about the vampire retirement homes?”
“I lived in one for two years,” he says without turning from the window. “Maybe ‘lived’ isn’t the right word. I existed there, in a special rehab ward for young vampires who aren’t too crazy about their new way of life. That ward’s locked twenty-four seven.” He gives me a little smirk. “Which was why I learned to pick locks.”
“And it explains how you got out.”
“But not why I left at night.”
“Why?”
“I wanted a life. A purpose. The music gave me that. This place—” He gestures to the ramshackle building appearing ahead of us. “—gave me that.”
We pull into the parking lot and get out of the car. The air feels warm and stalker free.
Shane stands with me next to the car and takes my hand. “Tell me what I can do to save the station.”
I gasp. “You mean it? You want me to exploit you for the greater good?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t put it that way, but yeah.”
“Thank you!” I can’t resist hugging him. “Your public is dying to meet the mystery vampire. You should see all the speculation on the blogs.”
“On the what?”
“You’ve gotten more press than the other five put together, and you haven’t even shown your face.”
Shane tries to look like he doesn’t care. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Guys hate pressure. They want to believe everything they do is their idea.”
“This is my idea, to ... go along with your idea.”
“The problem is, I’m not sure Elizabeth wants to sell the station to make money or retire the six of you. I bet she wants to get away from David.”
Shane sighs and looks off into the woods. I can tell he wants to share gossip.
“She still bites him, doesn’t she?” I ask.
He hesitates. “He’s the only human she’s ever tasted.”
“Then no wonder she wants to cut ties. I’d hate to be so dependent on an ex-boyfriend. It’s just not healthy. And why would David let her bite him when she makes him miserable?”
“You’ve obviously never been in an addictive relationship.”
I put up my hands. “Ugh, no. Not into the whole needing thing. But if this is all about Elizabeth and David, it might not matter how many ads we sell or how much the ratings increase.” Shane doesn’t reply, just keeps staring into the woods, so I answer myself. “Then again, maybe it’s only one factor in her decision.”
Shane opens the driver’s-side door. “Get back in the car,” he says quietly.
“Why?”
“Casually. Now.”
Once we’re in the front seats, he says, “Someone’s watching us.”
I glance out the back windshield but see nothing. “Twice I’ve felt like I was being stalked in the parking lot. Regina said it was an old vampire named Gideon.”
“I smell human.” He rolls down the window. “A human who smokes Marlboro Light Menthols.”
“You can tell all that with one whiff?”
“I’m kidding about the brand, but the rest, yeah. It’s on his breath and in his pores.”
“Where is he?”
“In the woods, I think. The wind makes it hard to tell until he gets closer.” He pats his leg. “Put your head in my lap.”
“Huh?”
“If he thinks I’m distracted he might get bold.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Go on.”
I lean over and rest my cheek on his thigh. At first it seems like a nice place to be, except, “The emergency brake is in my stomach.”
He slides his hand between the brake and my waist, creating a cushion. “Better?”
“Yes, thank you. Hear anything?”
“Just you talking.”
I clamp my mouth shut. His other hand strokes my hair, soothing and stimulating at the same time. I understand now why dogs like having their heads petted.
Shane looks suddenly to the right. He adjusts the side-view mirror with the manual control knob on the door. “He’s behind us, but not close enough that I need to start faking an orgasm.”
I can feel Shane’s nerves on alert. He focuses on the side mirror, leg muscles tensing. His hand slides down the armrest toward the door handle.
He lunges forward. “Move.”
I sit up. Shane opens the door and jumps out of the car. I lean out to see him race across the parking lot and into the woods near the radio tower. A few moments later, the high-pitched rev of a small engine shatters the night’s silence, then recedes quickly into the distance.
Shane reappears from the back of the building and returns to my car’s open passenger door. “Son of a bitch had an ATV hidden back there. Almost got him.”
“Did you get a good look?”
“Dark hair, mustache. Nothing special.”
“But you didn’t recognize him.”
“Why would I?” He props his arms on the roof and peers in at me. “Could be one of your old boyfriends.”
“I’d never date a smoker. Especially not menthols, yuck.”
He chuckles. “Hypocrite. You had a cigarette with Deirdre.”
“Who?”
“My donor, the one we visited.”
“Great. Now I know her name. Now if I see her in the produce aisle, I can say, ‘Hi Deirdre, how’s your torso? Any new holes?’”
“You sound jealous.” Shane sits in the passenger’s seat and tugs me into his lap without a struggle. “You sound like a girlfriend.” He strokes my cheek with the back of his hand. “I’d like you to be my girlfriend.”
My stomach flips, but I remember Regina’s warning about hurting him. “That’s sweet, Shane, but can’t we just enjoy each other? Going steady is so old-fashioned.”
He sighs. “I hate the new millennium.”
“Now who’s the hypocrite? You put your hands all over those women you bite, yet you expect me to sit at home in a sackcloth.”
“It’s different. I have to drink, you don’t have to see other guys.” He runs a finger down the side seam of my camisole. “Besides, you’d look damn sexy in a sackcloth.”
I push him away, a few inches. “It’s not different. You would have slept with Deirdre that night if I weren’t there. In fact, drinking blood is probably
a great excuse to get laid, not the other way around.”
“What if I stopped drinking women? I could make some trades with the other vampires. Would that change your mind?”
“You’d do that for me?”
“I already did.” He brushes the hair out of my eyes. “The last woman was Deirdre, the night you came with me to visit her.”
My chest constricts, and I wipe my hand over my forehead. “Shane, I can’t be your girlfriend.”
His face falls. “Why not? I thought we were over the whole Beauty and the Beast issue.”
“Not when I’m still a beast.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You want the truth? It’s not pretty.”
“It usually isn’t.”
I move clumsily out of his embrace, back into the driver’s seat. “You remember that guy, the one David told you about? The one who wouldn’t press charges after I conned him?”
“Mark, right?”
“That wasn’t his name. That was his function.”
“Whatever.”
“It’s not whatever.” I take a deep breath. “He was my boyfriend.”
He blinks hard. “You conned your last boyfriend? Out of how much?”
“He only thought he was my boyfriend.” I run my hands over the steering wheel. “Okay, rewind. I’ve always scraped by on short cons, the kind that take a few minutes or a couple hours. Bar bets, card tricks, pool hustling. Sometimes I’d join up with another con to do pigeon drops or the badger game.” I pause, waiting for him to ask what those are. He doesn’t. “But I was tired of scraping by. I thought if I did one long con, I could take off the rest of the year, live like a normal person.”
His voice hardens. “Ciara, how much?”
“Thirty thousand.”
“Thirty thousand dollars?”
“A year’s tuition, plus living expenses.”
“Holy shit.” He takes several moments to digest this fact. “How’d you do it?”
“I convinced him to invest in a get-rich-quick land deal. I made out like it wasn’t quite legal, so he’d give me cash and so there was no way he could check up on it. They say you can’t cheat an honest man.”
“But why would he trust you?”
“Lust can make a fool out of anyone. He would’ve bought the Brooklyn Bridge from me.” My face heats. “I did things his wife wouldn’t do.”
Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires Page 81