by Chism, Holly
And she blushed again. Hard. From her forehead down her neck. I’m sure it went farther, but I didn’t care to guess where it ended. “Well. Enough of that. I left Ray in the shower. He’ll be down in a few. Where do you want to talk to him?”
I shrugged. “Guess in front of my fireplace will do fine,” I said. I wandered into my office to make coffee and start the computer waking up.
Andi followed me, looking worried. “I…I’m not so sure in here is a good idea,” she said, bringing a hand up to her face to chew on the corner of her thumbnail. “I mean, are all of your clients on the right side of the law?”
I shrugged. “As far as I know, they are,” I said. “The ones I’m not sure about aren’t in the U.S.”
She sighed, her frown disappearing. “Oh. Okay. And the stuff we found downstairs is still downstairs, right?”
I nodded. “I’ll watch the auctions, but those won’t resolve for another ten days,” I said. “And then, we’ll need to start shipping.”
Andi nodded. “Should be okay to do by then, hopefully.”
I shrugged. “I can make it okay, you know,” I said absently, listening to the plumbing’s sounds change. “Can you start a fire? I just heard the shower shut off.”
Andi shuddered. “You know, I keep forgetting you’re an immortal, blood drinking fiend,” she said, “not a normal person. And then you say things like that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, sure. Guess you forgot how we met.”
“Well, I don’t keep it in the front of my mind, no,” she snapped. “And I don’t want you hypnotizing Ray into forgetting stuff. Do you even know what that does to people in the long term?”
I snickered. “Actually, I’ve got a good idea,” I said. “I’ve been doing this for twenty years, trying to get date rapists to stop date raping. The only one who hadn’t immediately stopped was particularly stupid, and un-fuckable. And even he stopped when he found a girlfriend. No other ill effects—I do keep an eye on people, especially the ones I’ve messed with, or have semi-friendly interactions with.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice small. “I didn’t know that. That you kept an eye on people, I mean.”
I shrugged. It really wasn’t that big of a deal, and I was more watching to make sure none of the ones I’d snacked on had any ill effects from that. Figuring out that the mindfucking I was doing wasn’t hurting them was just a bonus. It had been a great bonus when I’d noticed, but I hadn’t particularly cared that much about their personality improvements until they showed up.
Hell, some of them even started improving their grades.
It certainly made me feel proud of myself. Easy justification for what I’d have done anyway.
I checked my email as I waited for the coffeemaker to finish its cycle and for Andi’s friend Ray to make an appearance. The fireplace was in the process of catching where she’d built the fire, and smelled wonderful, especially in combination with the smell of the books lining the walls.
I glanced up as Andi plopped down in one of the chairs in the library. “You sticking around?”
She nodded. “Ray had an idea. I’ll be going with him.”
I held up a hand. “I had a conversation with another like me. He’s in the same business for those like me that your friend Ray is for people like you.”
Andi’s expression shifted from a vague uneasy embarrassment (Yay! Go me for embarrassing my housemate out of having sex while I was likely to be awake!) to one of stunned shock, and she sat up straight. “You mean, vampires have cops?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I guess they’d have to, given what I’ve found out. Kansas City has a particularly thriving community. But yeah, they do have cops. And laws.”
She looked away, into the fire, chewing on the corner of her thumb again. “You haven’t…broken…any of their laws, have you? You won’t be in trouble with this person?”
I shook my head. “I made sure I wouldn’t before I agreed to meet with him. He’s coming in tonight. I’m supposed to meet him at Walmart about four in the morning, and guide him back out here. He’ll stay downstairs with me.”
“I’d rather stick him in the storm shelter,” she admitted.
I shrugged. “So would I, but it’s going to be too cold. And there’s no way to heat it, really. He’d be literally frozen solid tomorrow night. I don’t think having him staying in my apartment is going to be that bad. I’ll put him in my bedroom, and I’ll take the couch.”
She grimaced. “I’m just worried about you and your safety, with an older—he is an older vampire than you are right?” she interjected. She continued when I nodded. “An older vampire that is one of their law enforcers staying with you when you’re vulnerable.”
I shrugged. “He said I don’t have anything to fear from him. The only law I remember breaking was the whole ‘thou shalt not draw attention to thineself,’ and the only time I’ve ever done that, to knowledge, was when I was leaving the morgue.”
“No, it’s not,” a male voice said from the doorway. “You’ve been on security cameras any number of times since, when you’re traveling, gassing up your car, shopping, or what have you. I’ve even got a couple of your self-defense killings on tape. But the only reason I noticed you in particular was because of that first time had me looking for your trail. It all seems disconnected and unbelievable, which is why I was put on administrative leave. I have no idea how many people on camera on any given night are also vampires, but I was sure you were one.”
I turned my chair around to face the doorway. “I’m betting you’re Ray,” I said, looking him over.
He nodded. “Raymond Vincent, at your service,” he said, grinning and offering a mocking bow.
I let my eyes drag down his body from his face, then back up. Broad shoulders, flat, wiry muscles, neat cornrow braids, cheekbones you could cut yourself on, chiseled jaw, neatly trimmed goatee, and beautiful, green-gold eyes…prime hunk of dark chocolate. “I may just take you up on that offer of service,” I mused.
“Damn, girl,” I said, flicking my eyes over to where Andi sat with both hands over her face. “You’ve got excellent taste. Because damn. Too bad I’m old enough to be your mother,” I finished, spinning my chair back around to face my computer. “You’re really nice to look at, but I’m not a cougar.”
There were several moments of very uncomfortable silence while I hid my grin by keeping my back to them and beginning to check the market. I could hear both their hearts pounding, and smell their embarrassment. His jeans creaked and shushed as he crossed the room and took the other chair. His whisper was a breath, but I could hear it as clearly as I’d heard the two of them earlier. “I feel so dirty. What just happened?”
I had to restrain a cackle as Andi whispered, “Payback. She heard us.”
“Oops.”
Interview with a…Yeah, Let’s Not Get Sued, Here.
They left the room not long after. I could hear them talking in the kitchen, him freaking out, and her trying to reassure him that I was only picking on him. And her. For being loud in their fun after sunset when I’d come up to start my laundry.
She made him a simple dinner from pasta and the leftover from scratch spaghetti sauce I’d helped her make in the fridge. Which Andi had been eating on baked potatoes.
I didn’t ask, but she insisted it was better that way.
I eat people. And now blood bags. I didn’t have any room to talk about weird diets.
The two of them went upstairs and I rolled my eyes sighing. But then, he went into the bedroom we’d set up as a guest room, and she went into the master bedroom. I ignored them in favor of getting some work done on the investments accounts I held. One of my bigger investors had emailed me after I’d gone to bed, with a request to pick up a specific stock. It looked good, and was on the way up, so I’d put out a mass email recommending it to the rest of my clients, while buying for the client that had specifically requested it.
I was just finishing up a flurry of activity when R
ay came down. I heard him pause outside the library, and knock on the doorway. I turned a little, glancing back at the doorway. “Come on in. I don’t bite unless attacked,” I called.
“So, you do bite people. Sometimes, at least,” he said. “Ever kill anybody on purpose?”
I spun my chair around, cup of coffee cradled between my hands. “Well, yeah. Hasn’t Andi told you how we met?”
He blinked. One time. Very slowly. “Uh, no.”
“She was leaving the gym, and some jackass had roughed her up a bit and drug her in an alley. Had her pants down, and was fumbling with his belt and fly. I stepped in.” I shuddered. “I hate rapists.” I looked up from my coffee to study his reaction.
He’d sank into a chair, one arm dangling, and the other hand covering his face. “Well, that’s…” His voice trailed off, and he moved his hand away from his face, looking tired. “Please tell me that one’s not still walking the world.”
“Nope. I slammed him against the wall he’d pinned Andi against, bent him backwards, and drained him,” I said.
“So it’s more than just a bite that brings…people…back,” he guessed.
I shrugged. “From what I’ve read, yeah. Either several feedings to introduce enough whatever it is that turns humans not human, not just a marathon session ending in death, or ingesting something else from the vampire.”
“Something…else.” He sounded more than a little grossed out. “I know there was rotted people meat in your stomach when you were autopsied. And a lot of it under your nails.”
I shrugged. “I think ass-face got overconfident. I fought back against being raped and drained.”
“Do you think…ingesting semen…would work?” he asked, looking both fascinated and repulsed.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess you’d have to ask an expert in vampire biology. I’m an investments advisor and accountant. Hell, I’m not totally sure vampires even make semen. Ass-face is the only other one I’ve ever met, up to this point. Only one whose existence I knew of until recently. And I was dead before he…finished, so I don’t know, and I don’t want to read my autopsy report to find out.”
“There’s more of you?”
I frowned. He sounded…appalled. “I don’t know how many, but yes. There are laws, though, that protect you from us as much as they protect us from you.”
He sighed, scrubbing both hands over his face like he was trying to scrub away something that bothered him. “Okay. So the guy I’ve been looking for is absolutely a vampire. What can I expect? What’s he capable of?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I can tell you what I’m capable of, but I have no idea what he’s capable of, other than drawing his victim out of wherever they are to wherever he wants to attack them.”
“So, what am I facing?” he asked, leaning forward and setting his elbows on his knees, his hands dangling between his knees. I had his full attention.
I smiled. And stopped breathing. I wasn’t sure if it would work if he was looking at me, but it was worth a try, and if it worked…
He jumped up to his feet, looking around wildly. “Meg?”
“Yes?” I said, taking another breath.
He stumbled backwards, falling into the chair with enough force to knock it back on the back legs, almost tipping him onto the floor. “What the actual fuck?”
I shrugged. “I can’t explain it. I don’t understand it. But I have to remember to breathe if I want people to notice me. And even then, they don’t really notice. Not like a dog or cat. Dogs, cats, any kind of animal see the predator. I can’t have a pet, anymore. People, on the other hand. People see me, but they don’t see the predator. And if I choose not to breathe, you can’t see me,” I said. “He doesn’t breathe most of the time. I don’t know if it’s a choice on his part, or if he’s so bat-shit insane he doesn’t even know he’s supposed to try to pass. You can’t catch him.”
“What am I supposed to do, then?” he asked plaintively.
“I don’t know,” I said shrugging. “I mean, you can’t see him, you can’t arrest him—I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t work anyway, because you couldn’t hold him if you did catch him—and unless he’s calling you from the place where you’re standing in a crowd to wherever it is he wants to attack you, you won’t even know he was there in the first place.” I paused, then continued. “I am absolutely sure you can’t catch him or kill him when he’s awake, and if he manages to get his hands on you at all, you’re finished.”
“I am, huh?” Ray asked, eyeing me. “Why’s that?”
Andi came in from where she’d been loitering in the hall. “Because Meg is easily capable of man-handling men a lot bigger than you are,” she said. “I’ve seen her move a full, four-drawer filing cabinet, without using a dolly. Last week, when we were cleaning in here. That one, right there,” she said, pointing to the far side of my computer monitor, “was over on the other side of the desk, in the corner over yonder, on the far side of the window, half-blocking the bookcase behind it, before she just…picked it up and moved it.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, and the guy I ate when we met was a lot bigger than Ray, here. And probably made his muscles throwing hay bales, if he was from this area. He wasn’t hard to manage at all.”
Ray leaned sideways in the wing back chair, bracing his elbow on the arm of the chair, and setting his chin in his hand, his eyes far away. “Yeah, arresting him won’t work. He’d break the cuffs, peel the car open like a sardine can, and get away. Probably after he killed me. And as a law enforcement officer, I hate that. I hate that I’m going into this with the intention to kill him because he can’t be arrested, and I’m not even sure if I can do that.”
My computer pinged an alert, and I turned to find a message from the other vampire I’d been in contact with.
I’m afraid I have bad news. I made Kansas City, and have been called upon to mediate a dispute between two different covens sharing the city. It’s going to take me a while longer before I can make it.
I sighed. “It looks like I’m not going anywhere tonight after all,” I said. “My contact isn’t going to make it into town tonight, despite what he planned.”
“Good,” Andi said. “I want to make other arrangements for somewhere to stay while another vampire’s in your house. I’m sorry—I’m not scared you’ll hurt me, but I don’t trust another one that I don’t know.”
I shrugged as I turned back to my computer to reply. “I don’t think it’s a real consideration, but I’m not going to try to make you stay here to prove a point. He enforces the law—doing something to you would expose non-living people.”
Mr. Richmond, I’ve got some very smart investigators here with me. Is there anything we can do to make your job easier when you get here?
The response came quickly.
Call me Robert, please. May I know your preference? I am afraid I cannot call you Nutmeg with a straight face. And yes. If your friends can investigate all suspicious deaths since you are aware of your sire’s arrival there, and put them on a map? You will, of course, need to rule out those you know you were to blame for, but do not otherwise attempt to help. Your sire can invade your mind while he wakes and you sleep, and rifle through your knowledge.
I grimaced. That was an utterly revolting concept.
I just threw up in my mouth a little from that image. I’ll pass the message. And I go by Meg. I don’t know what my mother was thinking when she named me.
I turned to where Ray and Andi spoke quietly. Cleared my throat. “Uh. I actually do have something you two can do to help track down ass-face,” I said. “I refuse to speculate about why. But. The individual I’m in contact with has asked you two to access local records from the end of September, and mark locations of weird deaths on a map. Andi can tell you which one I was responsible for. Before I met her, it had been almost a year since the last violent rapist I took care of.”
Ray looked up, then nodded thoughtfully. He started to speak, and I held up a hand. “I�
��m going back to my investments. I cannot know this information. Because the ass-bag can read it out of my head between the time he wakes, and the time I do.”
“Well, fuck.” Ray looked over at Andi in consternation.
Andi grimaced. “Hasn’t he done enough to violate you?”
I shrugged. “Yeah. But. Apparently, this is something my friend can stop when he gets here. And I’m just going to have to be left out of the loop until then.”
The two moved off, and I spun back around to face my computer. I buried all of my thought processes into making money until it was about an hour until dawn, then I went downstairs and read my book in my bed until I went under when the sun came up.
Missing Pieces
I woke at sunset, as per my normal, and took a fast shower. My accounts weren’t languishing, but I’d absolutely been less active than my clients were used to. I figured I’d spend the night tonight working. And ignoring my housemates as they worked on stuff.
I dressed business casual, and trotted up the stairs. Andi poked her head out of the kitchen as I stepped out into the main part of the house. “Oh, hey. Any plans for tonight?”
“Some,” I replied. “I need to pick up some office supplies tonight. My printer burned out late last night after you guys went to sleep—and you were right about Ray’s snoring, by the way—and I’m out of paper, toner, and notebooks. And I need a pair of headphones to be able to work without distractions while he’s here.”
“Are you planning on going to Walmart?” she asked worriedly.
“Fuck no,” I blurted out. “Not if I can at all avoid it, and if I do my shopping early enough, I can avoid it. And after the other night, I’d rather you went while the sun’s in the sky. Before midday, if possible. From my reading, dawn puts all of us out, but some wake early. None of them wake before midday, though, so mornings should be safe.”