Liquid Diet Chronicles (Book 1): Bite Sized

by Chism, Holly

  I went into the part of the store where they kept the alcohol. And I got the biggest bottle of Everclear I could find. And a bottle of zero calorie soda to mix. I gathered a couple of other things (bag of ice, red solo cups) and went to the checkout.

  The lady at the checkout--probably born the same year I was, but my aging had halted at a very young looking twenty-eight (got accused of carrying a fake ID fairly often)—eyed me. “I won’t check your ID on one condition,” she said, scanning the soda, ice, and cups. She held up the bottle of Everclear. “After I scan this, I want to open it and add some to my drink. This shift has been terrifying as utter hell, and they don’t pay me enough to handle this shit sober.”

  I blinked, thinking of how shocking and terrifying the whole mess must have been to people who weren’t expecting any of it. I mean, I was expecting bits, but not the whole mess, and it was pretty damn traumatic for me. I wasn’t sure Andi wasn’t going to have nightmares about it for months, if not years. “Go ahead.”

  “Thank you, dearie,” she said tiredly, pushing her black braid threaded with silver out of the way and cracking the lid open. She poured maybe a double in the 44 oz fountain drink she had sitting next to the register. “I’ve got another five or six hours left to go on my shift. This will make it easier to get home with what’s left of my sanity intact.”

  I smiled helplessly at the checker, took my bags and headed out to the car. Andi had my keys and had it running for the heater, with all of the doors locked. I went to the passenger side and tapped on the window. She jerked, then looked up. Flipped the lock. I rounded the front end of the car and climbed in, twisting around to set the ice in the back. The liquor I handed to Andi.

  “Open that up and take a drink before we get on the road,” I said. “You’re shocky.”

  She nodded jerkily, still shaking, and fumbled the bottle open, drinking straight from the neck. Three big gulps. I figured that would hold her until we got home, so I didn’t tell her to drink more as she lowered the bottle. She choked, wheezed, and started coughing as she screwed the cap back on. “Wow,” she wheezed again, as the color came back into her face. “That’s some strong stuff.”

  I nodded, fastened my seatbelt (and checked Andi’s), and pulled out. “What were you even doing, here?” I asked. “I waited until you’d been asleep for a while before I left.”

  “Rob woke me up,” she said. “Handed me your letter. I read it. I didn’t even bother getting dressed.” She sighed. “I didn’t want you to have to face him.”

  “I didn’t want you to, either,” I admitted. “If he’d woke up when you were trying to take his head, you’d have been dead. Because he didn’t breathe as a matter of course, and he wouldn’t have run from you. You’re prey, not a threat, like you said. And Ray couldn’t have shot him. He wouldn’t have been able to see him.” I paused. My volume and pitch had been climbing as I got more upset. “And even if he hadn’t woke up and killed you, I didn’t want that on your conscience.”

  Andi pursed her lips, pointedly not looking at me. “I won’t ask you about losing sleep, but won’t taking his head…stay with you?”

  I thought about it. Was I bothered? No, I decided. At the moment, I was feeling far too much relief that we’d prevented a fourth serial killer’s victim, one whose death I’d witness in excruciatingly intimate detail from inside the killer’s head, in this city, even if he’d been murdering twelve every year since God alone knew when. There would be no more serial rapes/murders committed by this particular jackal. Yeah, relief was all I felt right now.

  Later? I’d have to see.

  “No,” I said slowly. “I really don’t think it will. Right now, all I feel is relief that he’s dead. Maybe after I heal some, psychologically, I might feel some regret or guilt that it was my hand that took him out, but right now? No. No regrets.”

  “Good,” Andi said, her voice wavering. “Because I really didn’t want to kill him.”

  We rode in silence the rest of the way out to my house, stopping two thirds of the way there to pick Risto up on the side of the road, where a deer lay artistically twisted across the middle of the road, and the Mustang in the ditch just a little past. It really looked like she could have hit a deer, not a vampire.

  “In a way,” she said as Risto trudged over to the car through the knee-deep snow, “I’m glad it was you, not me.”

  “In every way,” I replied, “I’m glad it was me, not you.”

  Risto climbed into the back seat, raising an eyebrow sharply as he noted the bag of ice in the floorboard, along with the cups, soda, and the Everclear Andi had set back there. “I take it we’re celebrating?” he asked delicately.

  “More like recovering from a really nasty shock, especially on her part,” I said drily. “Andi wasn’t aware he was in front of her when she hit him with her car. She didn’t see him until I took his head. She couldn’t see him before that because I was the only one breathing.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”

  “Where did you leave my shotgun?” I asked before we pulled away from the side of the road. I wanted him to get it out of the Mustang, if it was there.

  “I’m afraid I leaped to the roof to get out of the sight of the living. I felt that getting out of the forefront of people’s attention with a loaded weapon would calm the hysteria the fastest. I couldn’t get it down from the roof of the store with a guarantee of nobody seeing the gun again in the commotion, and restarting the hysteria I only barely stopped,” he said regretfully. “It’s still there, on the roof of the shopping center.”

  “You can help me get it down tomorrow night,” I said wearily, pulling away from the side of the road and heading for home.

  “Of course,” he agreed easily. And a little more quickly than I was expecting.

  I pulled into my driveway with no further conversation. Risto collected my purchases from the back passenger floorboard, and got out, following me to the front door. He and Andi followed me in, and into the kitchen.

  “Permit me to go collect some few things from my belongings,” he said. “Have you used the envelope of blood I left on your nightstand yet?”

  I shook my head. “I intended to, but things got hectic,” I said. “It’s in my cups cabinet, over my sink, in the black coffee mug.”

  “I’ll bring it up with the rest of what I was collecting,” he said. “That small bit was enough for a glass of wine. I have the distinct impression that you will want quite a lot more than that, after this night.”

  Richmond walked into the kitchen. And froze when my gaze and Risto’s landed on him. He swallowed hard. Said nothing.

  Risto smiled slightly. “Ah, there you are. You are to take Williams and put him back in his grave. Post. Haste.”

  “Of course,” Richmond said after a moment’s hesitation, lowering his eyes. “May I ask why the immediacy?”

  “You went against me. Again. Did you not think there were valid reasons that Meg might have wanted Andi uninvolved?” His voice remained flat and even. And disappointed.

  “I thought her reasons…unimportant, in the long run.” Richmond spoke slowly, being very careful and deliberate in his word choice. Trying to deflect…blame? Disappointment? Anger? I couldn’t tell.

  I honestly didn’t care, either. He’d put my best friend in the pyscho’s path. Granted, it was at a particularly good time for me, but still. I didn’t like how fragile she was acting. It was a lot worse than the aftermath of the near rape.

  Risto shook his head gently. “I am aware of your reasons,” he reminded, “and while those were among them, they were also least among them. Be about the business I’ve assigned to you. Now.”

  Richmond bowed with no further words. “Miss Meg, may I borrow your car?” he asked. “I’ll arrange to have it returned tomorrow morning.”

  I shrugged. “I’d rather not loan you so much as a flush of my toilet, but needs must,” I said coolly. “If it’s not back by the time I wake tomorrow night, I’m filing
a police report.”

  He jerked, then nodded sharply. Spun. Marched off.

  I sighed in relief as he disappeared. Risto sighed. “I’m sorry he did that, but it did turn out well,” he said. “If she hadn’t hit him with the car…”

  I shrugged. “I’m aware. But right now, I want a bowl full of ice, and a glass brimming full of Everclear and diet soda, and I can’t have that without your help.” I made begging eyes at Risto, who gave me a somewhat frightened look as he rushed out after Richmond.

  Andi giggled. I turned and found her already holding her own cup of diet soda and—I leaned over and whiffed strong alcohol content—Everclear. “How much have you drunk already?” I asked dubiously.

  “Only what you made me drink before we left the parking lot,” she said. “But that was funny.”

  I smirked. “Kinda, yeah,” I agreed. “Want to go get Ray up to join us?”

  “Nah. He got called to come back sooner than he thought he would. He has to leave tomorrow,” she said, pouting.

  I grinned. “Well, once you get that on the inside of you,” I said, gesturing at the cup, “why don’t you go give him a send-off to remember? I’ll be well on my way to drunk not too long after.”

  *

  I woke, and knew I was dreaming. But this time, I wasn’t in my bedroom. I was in a pool of light, surrounded by pitch dark. I couldn’t see past the edge of the light. I sat up cautiously. A figure came close enough to the edge of the light that I could tell they were there, but not see details other than amber eyes, tilted up at the corners, staring down at me without any sign of emotion. “Child of my line, why did you turn on your maker?” an androgynous voice asked. The only emotion in that voice was curiosity—there was no anger, no disgust, nothing but a dispassionate curiosity.

  “He broke the laws,” I said, proud my voice didn’t shake.

  This wasn’t a sad, weak, mad dog. This was a serpent. Hooded and dangerous, close enough to strike.

  Fuck yes, I was scared.

  “We are above the law,” they said. “Our line. We cannot be seen, cannot be controlled. We are so far above the law that it cannot comprehend our existence.”

  “No one is above the law,” I disagreed. “Especially not the one about turning the unwilling, and abandoning the progeny.”

  A pair of hands came up and lifted a cowl, so that a glint of light sparkled off of gold. A crown? Or just hair? I had no idea. “That is our way,” the individual said, voice matter-of-fact.

  “It’s wrong. And it causes harm, serious harm, to the ones newly turned. It caused harm to me,” I said, my voice starting to shake a bit. I was starting to get angry, thinking of ass-face—who was now dead. And at my hand.

  That was satisfying.

  “You hated him.”

  “I did. He was a rapist and murderer. My rapist and murderer. Me waking up wasn’t intended on his part, nor on mine. I did hate him,” I agreed. “I also feared him.”

  “Ah. And what we fear, we kill. Do not fear me overmuch, child of my line. I will do you no harm. Not at present.”

  The figure stepped back away from the edge of the light, and the light dimmed.

  And I woke. Twenty minutes before sunset.

  I needed a shower.

  No, fuck that, I needed a drink.

  Afterword

  If you liked this book, please, please, please review it. I can’t overstate how important reviews are for independent authors, like yours truly.

  Word of mouth is also really important for us indies, especially with the way various social media outlets that will remain nameless have changed the way things work to force independent authors to pay to boost posts about their work. Tell your friends about books you’re reading and enjoying. Recommend books to friends and family, if you think they’ll enjoy them.

  You can find me on both Facebook and MeWe. I’m always happy to accept friend/contact requests. I also have a blog at hollychism.wordpress.com—there are a few stand-alone stories there, and some samples of other worlds I play in.