Better Homes and Hauntings

by Molly Harper

  But since there were no jiujitsu schools in Half-Moon Hollow, Cal’s little tests were probably the most training I would get this summer.

  “One of these days, Cal, you’re going to sneak up on me, and I’m going to stab you with something wooden and pointy. That’s not an idle threat. You’ve stocked my purse with a scary array of antivampire technology. If Ophelia ever decides to search me, I’ll probably be fired just based on the threat my change purse poses to the secretarial pool.”

  “Which means my evil plan will finally come to fruition.” Cal snorted. He had lots of reservations about my working for the Council, so he’d arranged for me to take Brazilian jiujitsu classes, crossbow lessons, and small-blade combat training near my college campus. The good news was I was no longer afraid of walking through the campus parking garage at night. The bad news was that most of the people in my advanced programming classes were now afraid of me, because they’d seen my knife-work gear in my shoulder bag.

  “And if you manage to stab me, Gigi, I will deserve whatever pointy revenge you can inflict upon me.”

  “You’re so weird.” I sighed, catching my reflection in the glass microwave panel. “Now I’m going to have to go fix my hair again.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Cal protested. I ran into the bathroom off the kitchen and ran a spare comb through my mussed hair. Cal leaned his long, rangy form against the doorway, watching me fuss. “Iris would get up and wish you luck, but she hasn’t quite worked up to daylight waking hours yet. It’s more of an advanced vampire trick.”

  “There’s also the small matter of Iris not wanting me to work at the Council office,” I said, leveling him with a frank smile. “It’s OK. Cal, you don’t have to try to sugarcoat it for me. I know I’m making Iris unhappy.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said breezily, following me back into the kitchen.

  “Aren’t you kind of old for blithe denial? Like several thousand years too old?” I asked, ducking when he attempted to ruffle my hair.

  “Keep it up and I won’t give you this delicious lunch I packed for you,” Cal said, digging into the fridge and pulling a small, blue square canvas bag from the top shelf. I opened it to find that Cal had made me a California roll and nigiri with his own two vampire hands. I’d developed a taste for sushi at school and there were no quality Japanese restaurants in the Hollow. So Iris and Cal had watched YouTube videos to figure out how to make it for me, if for no other reason than to save me from truck stop sashimi. This might have seemed like a minor gesture, unless one considered that to vampires, human food smelled like the wrong end of a petting zoo. “You’re the only human I know whose comfort food involves raw fish and rice.”

  “Vampires living in blood bag–shaped houses shouldn’t throw stones,” I told him. “And this is very sweet. I sort of love you, Cal.” I kissed his cheek, something that had taken him years to accept without flinching or making faces.

  “You completely love me. Now have a good first day at work. Play nice with your coworkers but don’t hesitate to use your pepper spray. If you get into trouble, there’s an extra stake sewn into the bottom lining of your purse. Call us before you drive home so we can wait up for you.”

  “Your employment advice is not like other people’s employment advice.”

  OPHELIA DID NOT deign to visit us on our first day. My fellow recruits and I talked exclusively to Amelia Gibson, the stern vampire head of HR, while sequestered—I mean, seated—in a windowless human resources conference room decorated in “early American prison.” In fact, almost everything in the newly renovated Council office was gray: gray walls, gray carpet, gray cement block, and gray laminate office furniture. Cold, impersonal, efficient, it wasn’t exactly home away from home.

  While the grim-looking security guards processed our security pass photos, we had to sit through the upsetting orientation videos. Most of them involved strategies for not provoking our vampire coworkers into biting us. Since I was pretty familiar with these tips—including “Lunch Break Hazards: Say Goodbye to Garlic” and “Empty Toner Cartridges: Replace Them or Die”—I spent my time studying my coworkers.

  It was interesting to me that none of the programmers was older than their midtwenties. The oldest of us, Marty, looked to be about twenty-three or twenty-four. Then again, working at the Council office full-time, we would be exposed to too many of the vampire world’s secrets and machinations. We would have access to their leaders. We would figure out how they managed to save enough money to survive on for centuries. That made us a liability as far as the vampires were concerned, and historically, people who were considered liabilities by the vampire community tended to disappear. Maybe sensible adults knew better than to work for vampires. Heck, maybe even vampire programmers were too prudent to work for other vampires, because there were no undead members of our department, either.

  I was sort of a mixed bag when it came to vampires and trust issues. I mean, Ophelia was a four-hundred-plus-year-old vampire who looked like a teenager and thought like a Bond villain. So I was going to avoid any situation that would lead to sitting in her office . . . or any enclosed space, really. And sure, I’d been duped and supernaturally hypnotized by a vampire sent by a local supervillain to date me under false pretenses. But thanks to the hypnosis, I’d blanked out most of the unpleasant parts and only remembered dreamy scenes of teen vampire romance.

  My mind wandered to the mystery vampire I’d “met” over Christmas break. And “met” was in quotation marks because I hadn’t actually introduced myself. Because, well, he hardly stood still long enough for me to see him, much less speak to him. At first I thought he was a ghost. I’d barely been able to make out his facial features the first few times I saw him. And when Mr. Barely Visible finally became Fully Visible (and ho boy, was the visual nice), he’d surprised the ever loving hell out of me by swooping in, kissing me like something out of a Nicholas Sparks movie, and then disappearing.

  My imaginary vampire ghost literally just vanished, which was one of the few things pre–Coming Out TV and movies got right about vampires. The undead were stealthy and sneaky and could pop in and out of view in the blink of an eye, and they usually did it when a human was mid-sentence. Which in my opinion is super rude.

  The tragedy was that the hot mystery vampire had disappeared, completely and cruelly dropped off the face of the earth after giving me the most world-altering kiss I’ve ever experienced. It had been months since The Kiss. And despite lip-glossing for months, just in case I ran into him, I hadn’t seen so much as a shadow. I was starting to think I’d imagined the whole thing, which would be completely plausible, considering my emotional turmoil over dumping my dependable, solid, and all-too-human boyfriend Ben.

  Up close, my vampire had been center-of-the-solar-system hot. He’d looked like every hero in those Jane Austen movies that Iris’s friends liked so much, golden hair that sort of curled around his face without being Bieberish, eyes so light brown they appeared gold, high cheekbones, long straight nose, chiseled jawline and a mouth that looked just smirky enough that you could imagine it saying some really filthy things. When I thought about meeting him again, he was always wearing a waistcoat and lounging around a stable full of fluffy, inviting piles of hay.

  And that was a big part of why I didn’t tell Iris about this, because that’s the sort of thing for which she would mock me, mercilessly.

  Of course, I didn’t know if I would ever meet him again. Considering his five-month absence, I was going to guess not. Why had he even been in the Hollow? He seemed awfully Continental for Kentucky, though that really wasn’t an indicator anymore as our little burg seemed to be a magnet for vampires of all origins. Miranda Puckett’s boyfriend, Collin, was an excellent example. Tall, smooth, and British, I’m pretty sure that guy was an extra in one of those Austen movies Iris’s friends liked so much.

  But why had my vampire chosen me to pseudo-stalk? It would have been one thing if I’d only seen him the
first time at the Christmas tree farm, but he’d seemed to follow me on several occasions. Had he known my schedule or was he just that good at guessing where I’d show up? Maybe that was his special vampiric gift: GPS. A Gigi Positioning System.

  That sounded wrong, but fun.

  Seeing my new (gray) office, the windowless workroom I would be sharing with my three teammates, did little to improve my concentration. Four modular desks were stuck in four corners with four shelving units. I supposed the vampires considered it “private” since we would be working with our backs to each other.

  Still, this was where the perks of working for vampires came in—years of observing human weaknesses gave them enough information to know just how to lure us in. Each of our desks was flanked by a mini-fridge prestocked with sodas and juice we’d listed on our postinterview preference lists. Our work computers were custom-built from the fastest processors and computers available—as in “available on planet earth,” not available at our local Computer Barn. And each of our chairs was the very latest in ergonomically supportive, butt-cradling comfort.

  On the far wall, I spotted a console for the latest Orange Door entertainment system, complete with digital jukebox, touch screen, and four wireless headsets.

  And in the corner was an enormous aquarium filled with colorful, gliding tropical fish. Ms. Gibson explained that the fish tank was supposed to “accommodate the human need for color and light stimulation without the dangers of a window.” I didn’t think she intended to make us sound like cats in need of a flashlight to chase, so I let it go. The tank was pretty soothing, after all.

  Despite these very nice toys, we still had to pass a four-week probationary period. It was pretty sensible, really, when you considered the reliability of the average college student. It would probably be more sensible to give us a much longer probationary period, but we were only going to be working with the Council for a few months before we headed back to school.

  Of course, the probationary period was sort of twofold. Some of us would work freelance for the Council during the school year if we proved ourselves to be competent, trustworthy, and non–vampire provokers. We would be able to keep the cars, the salaries, and the other perks, and then slide right into full-time, post-graduation employment. Sure, it would take some of the angst out my final spring semester, but the dental plan would be worth it.

  Beyond the perks, tracing vampire lineage was a challenge. It was a huge mystery waiting to be unraveled and (thanks to a freshman-year switch in majors to computer science) I was one of a very few people who had the skills to do the thread-pulling. More importantly, I would be connecting people to their families, and family was something I’d sorely lacked growing up. Sure, we had a few uncles and cousins who’d been first in line to take “something to remember” Mom and Dad by after they’d died, but disappeared like smoke when Iris and I had needed actual help adjusting to life without parents.

  Iris had done her best to give me a solid, happy home life when she was human, but I felt the lack of connection to a larger identity. Of course, I couldn’t exactly complain now, with the ever-expanding troop of supernatural creatures that seemed to materialize at our house at the drop of a hat. I deeply appreciated the color and chaos they brought into our lives. And if I could give that to someone else, if I could give them the family they never knew they’d been missing, I would consider it a contribution to the world.

  And once the search engine was established, there would be other opportunities to work on the vampires’ secret projects. Who knew what I would see, what I could learn, where they would send me? This was the beginning of an exciting, adult life in which I could establish myself as that elusive “something more” I had yet to figure out.

  We were dismissed early, but barely so, after signing a mountain of releases, waivers, and nondisclosure agreements. Most of the paperwork involved agreeing that our estates didn’t have the right to sue the Council, no matter what happened. We also signed a single document in which we had to check “yes” or “no” regarding whether we wanted to be turned should we be injured on the job beyond the treatment capabilities of modern medicine. I was surprised to be the only one who actually mulled this signature over. Aaron, Marty, and Jordan all immediately checked yes. Then again, I doubted that those three had any actual vampires in their families. They’d never seen the post-turning adjustment problems, the struggle with bloodthirst, the horrible burnt-popcorn smell that lingered after vampires came into contact with sunlight. They thought it was all nighttime glamour and leather coats.

  With a rather redundant warning not to discuss our nondisclosure agreement with our families, Amelia sent us home. At least, she sent Aaron, Marty, and Jordan home. She asked me to stay a few minutes because Ophelia had some papers she needed to send to Iris’s business, Beeline. I stood outside Ophelia’s office waiting for at least ten minutes, trying not to take it personally that I wasn’t invited inside to wait or that when she finally handed the papers out to me, she just shoved an envelope out of her doorway without actually showing her face.

  “Thank you,” I said as pleasantly as I could, while Ophelia snatched her hand back and slammed the door.

  “Company car and a clothing allowance,” I reminded myself as I walked out of the employee exit, rummaging around in my purse, affectionately referred to as the Bag of Holding. “A 401(k) and a dental plan.”

  My keys were, as usual, at the very bottom of my purse. The parking lot was empty, but at least the humans had designated parking right under the streetlight. It was the vampire version of handicapped parking. I would take time to be offended by that once I was safely ensconced in my locked car.

  I glanced around the empty lot, once and then a second time, while my heels made a quick clip-clop across the pavement. Just as I passed an unoccupied SUV, two strong hands clamped around my shoulders and yanked me out of my shoes.

  I froze. I couldn’t move and time stopped and all I could think was, I’m going to die. Iris is going to deserve such an “I told you so.”

  His hand wrapped around my jaw, squeezing it so hard I thought I felt the bone buckle. I pinched the panic button on my keyless remote. In the distance, I could hear my car alarm wail. My feet flopped uselessly two inches above the ground as he—at least, I thought it was a he—dragged me toward the SUV. Given the fact that I was a little over six feet tall, the guy must have been huge.

  Fighting back the initial panic, I hoped, somewhere in the back of my mind, that this was another one of Cal’s tests. Calm. I had to stay calm. This was just like getting thrown around the mat by my instructor, Jason. I just had to assess what needed to be done and go through the steps. I threw an elbow back, but missed his ribs, and his grip on my arms tightened. I wrapped my leg around his, hoping to make it harder for him to walk if he planned to carry me off. I threw my head back, hoping to connect with the bridge of his nose. But I missed there, too.

  My heart raced. There’s no way this could be Cal. My brother-in-law would have cackled like a loon if he’d evaded a head butt. Which mean this was real.

  Shit. I was going to die.

  My assailant squeezed me tight against his chest and wrapped his hand around my throat, making it almost impossible for me to breathe. But he didn’t say anything, which was completely weird. Vampires were notoriously chatty during violence. And he wasn’t biting me, which was even weirder.

  I was either being attacked by a run-of-the-mill human mugger or a remedial vampire. I wasn’t sure which was worse.

  I struggled, wiggling my arm loose, and pressed a button on the ugly agate brooch on my lapel, sending a cloud of colloidal silver spray mushrooming around my head. It was harmless to me, but if this guy was a vampire, he’d be allergic to silver in all its forms.

  Jackpot! My vampire attacker coughed and spluttered, losing his grip on my arms as the silver did its work. I reached into my purse and grabbed the hairbrush strapped into its special compartment. The ordinary looking purple-plastic b
rush was another one of Cal’s security contraptions. I gripped the bristles hard enough to make a silver stake pop out of the handle. I rammed the point into my assailant’s thigh. It wouldn’t kill him, but he certainly wouldn’t be chasing after me any time soon.

  “AUGH!” he cried, letting go of my arms entirely and dropping me to the pavement like a sack of potatoes.

  My knees almost gave under my weight, but I planted my feet. It was a good move, considering that all the guy’s weight pitched forward on my back and I was bent in half. The hands gripped at my hair, keeping my head down. I reached back, searching for the hairbrush. I pulled it from his leg with a sizzling hiss, like angry bacon. I raised it to stab the other leg, when he suddenly shoved me aside and leapt toward the street using his completely unfair vampire speed.

  “Yeah, you better run,” I panted, bending at the waist so I could prop myself against my knees and catch my breath. But the slick material of my suit gave way under my sweat-soaked palms and my hands slid right off. I fell forward and, unable to catch myself, toppled face-first onto the pavement.

  Ouch.

  Blinking rapidly, I watched the vampire limp away. His blond hair shone almost blue in the sickly light of the streetlamps. He turned back as if he was reconsidering, and I reached into my purse for my final piece of vampire self-defense equipment, a flamethrower the size of a small canister of hairspray. And then my eyes managed to focus on his face.