Many Bloody Returns

by Charlaine Harris

  “Do you eat now?” Michael said.

  The question seemed ridiculous. “Of course,” I said.

  “But do you like what you eat? Do you actually hunger for carrot sticks? Do you long for steamed broccoli and romaine with diet dressing?” He put his warm lips next to my ear and whispered, “When was the last time you had food you really wanted?”

  I thought of the meals of my youth, when I could eat anything: fried chicken and cheeseburgers, crispy French fries lightly sprinkled with salt, hot fudge sundaes with warm whipped cream, crusty bread and butter.

  “You haven’t had any of those in years, have you?” Michael said.

  He could read my mind. I knew that now.

  “You’ll never experience the pain of dieting again,” he said. “You will have no need for ordinary food. You will drink the food of the gods. Blood is offered to them as a sacrifice. You will take it for your own pleasure. It is a thrill you cannot imagine. You will still hunger, but now you will be satisfied. You are hungry, aren’t you? Even now, after your supper of skinless chicken.”

  “Yes.” The pale, pathetic hunk of bird nearly turned my stomach. “I can do good, too,” I said. “I can feed on those who deserve to die.”

  His eyes were suddenly darker, and I realized he was angry. “No! You must embrace the dark side like a lover. Any good you do will be accidental.”

  “But Jack—” I began.

  “When Rosette killed that bloodsucking lawyer, she made a lot of scorned wives happy. But Jack will be mourned by his daughter. Randall killed the IRS agent because she’d been auditing his books. She nearly drove him crazy, and he was innocent. But she was the sole support of her elderly mother. And, irritating though she was, the agent was an honest woman.

  “You cannot fool yourself into believing that you will only feed on serial killers or child molesters. That is romantic nonsense.

  “You are evil and you must choose it. Your killing will not make the world a better place. We kill for revenge, for sport, for reasons that are impossibly petty. Marissa once killed a dress shop clerk on Las Olas because she wouldn’t wait on her.”

  “So you’ve killed more people in Fort Lauderdale than Jack and the IRS agent?” I said.

  “Many more,” Michael said. “The details about the other bodies being exsanguinated did not make the papers. The police try to hide that information. When it becomes public, then it’s time for us to leave. That’s why we’re going tomorrow night.”

  “What happened to the other bodies?”

  Michael said nothing. He didn’t have to. I realized we were looking at the wide black ocean.

  “Where will you go when you leave?” I said.

  “The south of France,” he said. “I have a cottage by the sea. The air smells of lavender and the sound of the waves is wonderfully soothing.”

  A small sigh escaped me. He was offering me such a beautiful life.

  “Why me?” I asked. “There are millions of women like me, a little past our prime, abandoned by our husbands.”

  “Do you define yourself only by your husband?” he asked. “I don’t think so. Americans have such boring ideas about age. Older cultures celebrate all aspects of a woman’s life. Americans only want youth, which can be the dullest time. I prefer a woman who has lived.

  “And you are not like the others. You are strong. You have resisted the lemminglike urge for plastic surgery. It’s became a national obsession, but you fought it, even though it cost you your marriage and your comfortable life. You knew it wasn’t the right choice for you. That takes courage. You know who you are. Do you know what you are?”

  For the first time, I knew I was someone special.

  He took my hand. “I’d like you to join us,” he said. “I want you. Now that you know, you have only two choices: join us or die.”

  “May I have twenty-four hours? I have some loose ends to tie up.”

  “Yes. But, remember, no one will believe you if you go to the police. And we will be gone before they can get a search warrant.”

  “I would never betray you,” I said. “You’ve already helped me. Did you encourage Rosette to kill Jack? For my sake?”

  “I wish I could take credit,” Michael said. “But Jack was her idea. Still, I’m glad it helped you.”

  Then he kissed my hand. “You have much to think about,” he said. “I hope you make the right decision.”

  I left him feeling oddly lighthearted for a woman whose only choice was death: my real death, the living death of middle age, or the death-in-life of a vampire.

  I slept well that night, or what was left of it. Then, at five-thirty, I was awakened by Eric slamming doors and opening drawers. He had four white shirts in plastic bags. I’d picked up those shirts for him from the best laundry in Lauderdale, prepared precisely the way he liked: hangers, no starch.

  I sat up groggily in bed. “From now on,” I said, “have your slut pick up your laundry. That’s the last errand I’m running for you.”

  “Don’t you dare call Dawn that,” Eric said.

  “Dawn! What kind of name is that? Has it dawned on you how trite you are?” My bitterness burst like a lanced boil, and I was screaming like a fishwife. My husband yelled right back.

  Our argument was interrupted by a pounding on our front door. Marvin, our condo security guard, was standing on the doorstep. He looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But there have been complaints about the noise.”

  We both apologized to the guard. Now my humiliation was complete. Eric walked out a few minutes later, clutching his fresh shirts by the hangers. “You’ll hear from my lawyer,” he said.

  That was it. That was how he ended our quarter-century marriage, the day before my birthday.

  He’d forgotten that, of course. He couldn’t even say, “I’m sorry, I’ve found someone else.” Eric wasn’t sorry, was he? But he would be.

  I watched the sun rise on the last morning of my life. The new morning turned the air a pearlescent pink, and a shimmering fog drifted across the water. White birds skimmed along the Intracoastal.

  I will never see this beauty again, I thought. But I didn’t have time to wallow in regret. I had things to do. I stopped at a diner for a last, lavish breakfast. The young, busty waitress was too busy flirting with a table full of businessmen to pay any attention to me. I could hear the cook ringing the bell in the kitchen. When the waitress finally brought my breakfast, the eggs had congealed to rubber and the home fries were coated with grease.

  “This food is cold,” I said to the waitress.

  “Huh?” she said, as if she’d just noticed me for the first time. Once again, I was the incredible, invisible middle-aged woman.

  “I’ll get the cook to warm it up,” she said.

  “Never mind,” I said. “I’m not hungry after all.”

  I threw some money on the table and left. I’d lost my taste for food.

  At ten o’clock, I was weeping in my lawyer’s office. The tears came easily, and they weren’t entirely false. Only the accusations were made up.

  “Please help me,” I sobbed. “My husband is divorcing me. He has a new girlfriend and he hates me. They’re fighting about how soon they can get married. I’m in the way. I’m afraid Eric will harm me.”

  “Harm you how?” the lawyer said.

  She would look perfect on the witness stand during Eric’s murder trial, I thought. She was serious enough for the women to believe her, but sexy enough to get the men’s attention. There was something about her tailored black suit, tightly pulled-back hair, and horn-rimmed glasses that made men wonder what she’d look like without them.

  “K-kill me,” I said. “Eric doesn’t let anyone stand in his way.”

  “Have there been any threats?” the lawyer said.

  “Nothing in front of witnesses,” I said. “But we had a terrible fight this morning, and he said he’d kill me if I didn’t give him a divorce and…I’m so embarrassed. Condo security had to knock on o
ur door.”

  “That’s good,” the lawyer said. “I mean, it’s not good, but it will help.”

  She made plans to get a restraining order and told me to change the locks. Of course, I would tragically disappear before I could carry out her instructions.

  It was after noon when I left the lawyer’s office, my least favorite time of day in Florida. The parking lot was baking in the harsh sun. It showed all the cracks in the buildings and the sidewalks—and in my lips and skin. I won’t miss this, I thought. Not one bit.

  I wanted to treat myself to a special dress for this evening, my coming out. I strolled along Las Olas Boulevard, where all the smart shops were. The windows glowed with dresses in dramatic black and fabulous colors.

  Black, I thought. Black was the right choice when you’re going to the dark side.

  I entered a cool shop. A young saleswoman, who looked like a thinner version of Dawn, was talking to another clerk. They didn’t look up when I came in. They didn’t notice me.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “May I have some help?”

  The two young women smirked and rolled their eyes, and I understood why Marissa had killed her salesclerk. If I had more time in Lauderdale, I’d come back for this one.

  But I didn’t. I bought the first dress I tried on. It didn’t fit quite right. I could see my drooping back in the mirror, the little rolls of fat at my waist. But they would be gone soon. In my new life, this dress would be spectacular.

  As I left, I knew I’d made the right decision. Not about the dress. About my life. I would be invisible, but it would be my choice.

  I would be powerful.

  I would be beautiful forever.

  I would get the blood back. It would flow again. It would flow into me, and I would feel the ecstasy. I would not be young, but I didn’t want to be young. The young were vulnerable, trusting, hurting. I never wanted to feel that way again.

  I sat in my condo and thought about the rest of the night and the beginning of my new life.

  When the sky began to bleed red, I walked once more through my condo, saying good-bye to all my things. It would be easy to give them up. I sat on the balcony until the sun set and the sky turned dark velvet. Then I dressed for my final night.

  At midnight, I met Michael down by the docks. He was frighteningly beautiful.

  “Have you made your choice?” he said.

  “I choose you,” I said.

  He kissed me. “I’m so glad,” he whispered. “Everyone is waiting for you. Who will be your first kill?”

  “Dawn, Eric’s office manager. The police will find her bloodless body outside his clinic.”

  “What about your husband?”

  “I’ll let him live. It will be fun to see how he explains his drained and dead girlfriend and his missing wife. I’ll be gone, but I won’t take anything with me—no money from our bank account, no stocks, not even my jewelry. I’ll follow the trial on the Internet from the south of France.”

  Michael smiled. “I’m sure we’ll all be entertained by the drama,” he said. “Happy birthday, Katherine.”

  How Stella Got Her Grave Back

  Toni L. P. Kelner

  Toni L. P. Kelner is the author of the Laura Fleming Southern mystery series and the forthcoming Where Are They Now? series about a freelance entertainment writer who specializes in articles about the formerly famous. She has won the Agatha Award for best short story and the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, and has been nominated for the Anthony, the Macavity and the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice awards. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, fellow author Stephen P. Kelner Jr., and two daughters. Though she’s a longtime fan of vampire fiction, this is her first vampire story.

  They stared at the tombstone. Or rather, Mark stared. Stella glared.

  “Are you sure this is the right place?” Mark asked.

  “Of course I’m sure!” she snapped.

  “It’s been a while since you’ve been here, right? And the circumstances that night were pretty much tailor-made for making you forget the exact location.”

  “I’m sure,” she said. “A person doesn’t just forget something like that!” She continued to glare at the tombstone, as if waiting for its current inhabitant to rise and answer her questions. “What I want to know is, who the hell is buried in my grave?”

  “I told you this was morbid.”

  Almost exactly an hour earlier, Mark had asked, “Don’t you think this is kind of morbid?”

  “We’re vampires,” Stella replied. “It doesn’t get much more morbid than that.”

  “Still, visiting your grave on your birthday? That kind of goes beyond the pale.” He snickered. “Beyond the pale! That’s good—I mean, we’re nothing if not pale.”

  “It’s not bad,” Stella admitted. “Not that you’re all that pale yet.”

  “True.” He’d been a vampire for less than a year, so as long as he applied generous amounts of SPF 45, he could still go outside in the daylight, and his tan hadn’t faded.

  They drove down the North Carolina highway in silence for a few minutes, Stella handling the maroon Cadillac with the ease only decades of practice can bring, and the caution for which vampires were infamous. While they could walk away from most accidents, reckless driving could lead to overly curious medical personnel or jail cells with uncurtained windows, so vampires tended to obey the rules of the road. Mark hadn’t had time to absorb that yet, which was why she was driving.

  He asked, “Is this your actual birthday or the anniversary of your death?”

  “Both,” she said.

  “You died on your birthday? That’s harsh. How old were you?”

  “You tell me.”

  “No way! I know better than to try to guess a woman’s age.”

  “We vampires are proud of our age.”

  “Yeah, right. If I said you looked thirty-five when you stopped aging at twenty-five, I’d be walking home.”

  “You think I look thirty-five?”

  “What I think is that you are a timeless beauty.” There was something about becoming a vampire that enhanced a person’s best traits, but Mark suspected Stella had been gorgeous even before death. Her hair was glossy chestnut, her eyes chocolate brown, her skin like porcelain, and her figure lush. “In fact, I think you’ve become even more beautiful since I’ve known you.”

  She smiled. “I’ll accept that. But, for the record, I was eighteen.”

  “Really? I would have guessed thirty-five.”

  “Bastard,” she said, still smiling.

  They passed a few more exits before Mark went back to his original point. “Other vampires don’t go to their graves on their birthdays, do they?”

  “Other vampires don’t put dirt into their beds, either.”

  “That’s not fair! Ramon swore that I’d lose vitality if I didn’t sleep in the earth of my homeland.”

  “I wonder how long you’d have kept doing it if I hadn’t smelled it on your pillow.”

  “No telling,” he said. “He bugs me about it every time he sees me, too.”

  “He tells everybody he sees about it.”

  “Damn it! How long will it take me to live that down? Die that down. Whatever.”

  “Until he plays the same trick on somebody else.”

  “Yeah, like he’s going to find a sap as big as me anytime soon,” he said glumly, looking out into the darkness of the countryside as they approached Allenville. “What counts as the dirt of my homeland anyway? Does it have to be from the town where I died or the town I was born in? Or buried in, for that matter? Or just the county? The state? The country?”

  Stella flipped on her signal and turned off of the highway. “Well, the dirt in Allenville would have done the job nicely. I was born here, died here, and buried here.”

  “On your birthday. That sucks!” He resisted any number of potential vampire/sucking jokes, having been threatened with being locked inside a tanning booth the last time he made one.


  “Are you kidding?” Stella said. “It was the best birthday ever!”

  “I see you celebrated birthdays differently in your youth.”

  She flashed him a look. “Look around the town.”

  “Just let me know when we get there.”

  “We are there.”

  Mark looked out the window. The interstate had been better lit than the street they were driving down, which had just enough light for him to see the WELCOME TO ALLENVILLE sign put up by the local Jaycees. The existence of a few scattered houses was betrayed only by the flickering blue glow of TV screens. “Not exactly a happening place, is it?”

  “Not unless you’re into chicken farming. Have you ever smelled a chicken farm?”

  “Wait! There’re lights ahead.” They crested a hill, but he saw nothing more exciting than a McDonald’s, a gas station, and a Wal-Mart. “Never mind.”

  “At least there’s a Wal-Mart now,” Stella said. “If we’d had something like that here when I was growing up, I’d have been in hog heaven.”

  Mark realized that her usual sophisticated tones had been growing more and more countrified during the drive but decided it would be impolite to mention it, and perhaps dangerous as well, considering the strength and speed of a vampire Stella’s age.

  “You weren’t happy here?” he asked as they left the oasis of neon behind.

  “Mama used to say I started walking early, just so I could get away from here that much sooner.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I wanted to, God I wanted to, but I had nowhere to go. No money, no schooling, nobody to stay with. I saved every penny I could, but I’d just about given up on ever getting a chance to leave when I met Vilmos. As soon as I saw him, I knew he was my ticket out of here.”

  “Just not quite in the way you expected.”

  “Not hardly,” she said. “Anyway, I thought I was seducing him, and afterward, I poured out my heart to him. He offered me the Choice, and I accepted it.”