A Taste of You

by Jennifer Stevenson

  Or I could pretend to turn him and instead suck him down to dust. Of course then I’d have to get a colon cleanse and an exorcism, because of the hideous taste of his energy. But it would definitely be a service to the planet.

  I open my mouth and the truth pops out. “I don’t know how.”

  “Come, you have an idea how you became a vampire,” Sageman says. He has a horribly indulgent tone, a smile like he’s talking to a little girl. The dumbbell. Does he not believe his own bullshit? How old does he think I am?

  Once again, looking underage and ignorant is working for me. I just wish I didn’t get into situations where it needs to.

  “I don’t know how,” I say again. I shut my teeth on the story of the coin. This guy is scaring the jeepers out of me “And if I knew how, I wouldn’t do it. You’ll just go around killing people.”

  “Not if you teach me how not to,” he says smoothly.

  “Right. And you so ethical.” Dammit, he’s got me talking. I don’t know how to switch off my mouth. Say no, Hel. “No.”

  Now shut up.

  Sageman nods as if I’ve confirmed his suspicions. “It seems Jones was not speaking from infatuation. You really are an ethical vampire.”

  I snap, “I wouldn’t turn you if I could.”

  Shut up, Hel! I can feel myself begin to tremble. In a few minutes I’m going to panic, and when I do I’m going to kill him, and then my troubles will really begin. Because I can’t bump off a high-level government agency official without killing Nick, too, and I can’t do that. Can’t.

  He seems to think it’s fear making me tremble.

  “How can I reassure you?” he muses. “Are you aware that there is a resource that could make it possible for you never, ever to have to kill again? Think of that. A square meal whenever you want it, as much as you can hold, without hurting a fly.”

  I remember Katterfelto talking about the prana in the power grid. And “keeping it out of the wrong hands.” At the time, I thought he was just doing his mad scientist riff. But Katterfelto doesn’t sound crazy at all next to this old weirdo.

  And I remember the power tower bending down to look at me in the blue.

  Sageman says, “Yes. It’s possible. If you had suspected its existence, I dare say you would already have tapped into it by now. Human energy, drawn off and stored, an infinite amount, more than you or I could consume in a lifetime. Even a vampire’s lifetime,” he adds, and I hear the blood jump under his skin.

  Oh, duh.

  He wants immortality, of course. At his age he wants it bad.

  He thinks I can make him immortal.

  I take a long, slow breath. He’s talking about all the prana that Katterfelto discovered in the power grid. “You don’t know how to get to the energy,” I say. “Do you?”

  Sageman looks delighted. “You see? You have much to offer me. Not merely your Gift,” and I can hear the capital letter, the dope. “But your wisdom. How long have you lived with this condition?”

  I don’t answer.

  “I’m revealing much more information to you than I would to one of my operatives,” he says. “Jones, poor lad, talented as he is, well, he’s not quite up to the subtleties of our work. But I feel sure that you and I can do business.”

  “You don’t have enough to do it with me,” I say. I hadn’t meant to say that. I bite my lip. I’ve got to keep him away from Katterfelto. “You can’t get at the prana reservoir.”

  Sageman’s brightens. “So Katterfelto has discovered it too? Thank you for the information. Now my resources are doubled.” To my narrow look he adds, “I have you. And soon I will have Katterfelto. Between you, or without you, I will find the third resource, one which I confidently expect will resolve all my questions and uncertainties.”

  I think, The coin.

  He says, “Exactly. The coin.”

  Dammit, I did not speak.

  This creepy old geezer is reading my mind.

  “Your thoughts. I have never been good at reading emotion,” he adds regretfully. “Not having any of my own.”

  And, boy howdy, are you in error there, I think.

  “You are not the first person of power whom I have met in my quest, Ms. Nagazy. Shall I show you what else I can do?”

  Sageman is so tickled that he stands up and rubs his hands, just like a bad guy in an old silent movie. Then he reaches into his inside jacket pocket and pulls out a big fancy gold crucifix.

  “I don’t have to threaten you personally,” he says, which is dumb because he thinks he’s doing it right now with that silly gold stick. “Agent Jones should be at the hospital by now.”

  If I’m to get out of here any time soon, I had better do it fast, and without thinking too much.

  Like lightning, I leap up and grasp the crucifix with one hand. Sageman’s look of surprise is worth a million dollars. With the other hand I grab him by the throat, and I force myself not to suck any of his energy out. It smells nauseating anyway.

  Instead I squeeze. He’s stronger than I expected. His hand, holding the crucifix, tries to thrust it down onto me, and of course all that does is piss me off because Sageman hasn’t figured out that I’m not one of his cheesey late-nite-TV vampires. I don’t think he’s doing a lot of thinking right now. His eyes bulge. His face turns purple. He collapses to his knees. He drops the crucifix and paws at my hand on his throat.

  I let go of his throat with an effort. I want to slap him until his head comes off and bounces against the wall and blood fountains out of his neck. I look into his eyes as I think this, hoping he can read my thoughts. I picture reaching down his throat and pulling his heart out of his body. I picture squeezing his beating heart until it pops and spatters his face with his own heart’s blood.

  I feel his energy turn fearful, and I know he has picked up those vivid images.

  I speak to him, low and slow.

  “When I find you again, I will kill you. When.”

  Then I bolt. I don’t want to be around somebody who can read my thoughts, dammit.

  No wonder Nick is afraid of this guy.

  Someday, when I have leisure to sit and think and breathe again, I am going to figure out exactly how he can read thoughts. Maybe I’ll ask Katterfelto, if we both live so long. I’ve met a whole lot of lame-ass miserable wannabe magicians and wizards and witches and shamans and psychics and ghost-hunters and spoon-benders, and not a one of them could really do diddly.

  Not like this guy.

  How does he do it?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I jog out of the motel parking lot into a brilliant dawn. The first thing I see is Nick’s Cherokee, idling around the bend in the motel lot. My heart clutches up. Why isn’t he on his way to the hospital?

  I duck behind a parked car and slither nearer to the Cherokee. The best way for me to protect Jilly is to stick to this guy. I pretend that it doesn’t tear my heart into three pieces to be this close to him.

  My brain thrashes with panic.

  Do I waltz up to his car and climb in? Do I turn into mist and seep inside his car, the way I did last night? Or was that the night before?

  I remember making love to him last night and I twitch. I remember his cold glare. His nausea at being near me. I remember with agony and despair how he delivered me to that evil Sageman and left me there.

  I can’t turn into mist, because that’ll leave me naked and phoneless whenever I decide I need a body again, which could be miles from here.

  Ducking behind a parked car, I pick an empty water bottle out of the gutter and toss it high into the air. It bounces with a huge clatter on the Cherokee’s hood. Nick jerks his door open and leaps into the street, crouching like a comic-book commando, his hand inside his jacket. While he glares around, looking for trouble, I slip up behind the Cherokee, twist the lock off the rear window, and tumble into the back.

  I’m turning to mist even as I snuggle down into the carryall.

  As long as he doesn’t look into the car from behin
d, he won’t even notice my clothes and shoes lying there.

  Nick scans the street, then gets back into the car.

  In mist form, I can feel the bonfire of his energy much more intensely.

  I also see his cell phone is lying open on the front passenger seat. There’s a wheezing, sputtering, coughing noise in the car, like a coffee-machine sucking the last water up into the heater coil. At first I think the noise is coming from the phone.

  Then I notice it’s coming from a gizmo on the dashboard. Nick is listening to the gizmo.

  The cell phone rings.

  Nick startles and slaps the gizmo and it goes silent. He picks up his cell. “Here.”

  Sageman’s voice, almost unrecognizable, says, “Are you at the hospital yet?” He’s wheezing — that was the sound I heard coming from the gizmo.

  “Almost.” Nick guns the engine and we peel away from the curb. “Order change?” None of the turmoil in his energy shows in his voice.

  Sageman wheezes some more. “No.” He coughs. “Proceed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I collapse away from Nick, huddling against the Cherokee’s back door like a thin layer of fog. He’s going after my mother. He’ll flash his Fed thing around and take her into custody and turn her over to Sageman.

  I want to scream and beat my fists against his back. I want to curl up and cry.

  How can he do this?

  I can’t think. Everything hurts too much. I love him and I want him and he may be the only man in the world I can’t kill with sex.

  I can’t help remembering last night, and my bodiless mist roils with pain. He still smells like the sex we had. In my misty form, I could sneak down under his clothes and lick it off him.

  I don’t dare. What if he realizes I’m here in the Cherokee with him?

  If I had eyes right now, I’d be icepick-blind with tears.

  In a moment of black humor I think, maybe Sageman would let me keep Nick as part of the bargain. If I could turn Sageman. If I would. Maybe Nick would put up with that.

  But he won’t, not Mr. I-Hate-Magic.

  I make Nick sick. I’m about as magic as you can get.

  I feel awful.

  Besides, Sageman won’t keep any part of any bargain with anyone. Nick’s in as much danger from his own boss as I am. Just as Jilly is.

  The wheel of pain stops.

  What would really make the whole thing work is if I would disappear.

  No, that’s not quite enough.

  It would work if I die.

  Where both Nick and Sageman could see me.

  It would have to be messy enough to leave remains. Decidedly dead remains. I don’t want Sageman hauling me off to the emergency room and reviving me at the last minute.

  I feel horribly mixed up.

  I’ve been starving for love and toying with suicide for oh, three or four years now, even after derby came into my life. Derby lets me eat without guilt, but it also makes me aware of how isolated I have to be to keep my secret. I love my teammates maybe half as much as I love Nick, and I need them to live. But I can’t let them get close to me.

  And part of me really wants to die. That’s the part that drinks itself into a coma four nights a week and writes maudlin Dear Ma letters until I pass out.

  Now that I’ve lost Nick, I yearn toward death. A cool dark quiet place, oh yes.

  And yet part of me is fighting. Finally, after more than forty-three years of downward spiral into self-loathing and loneliness and despair and unrequited horniness, I’ve met somebody I could love without killing him. He loved me for a few days. A few hours. It might work.

  If only Nick could forgive me.

  That treacherous, cowardly part of me that wants to live, that wants Nick, that part is full of frothy optimism.

  He’s in shock. He’ll get over it. What if you can prove Macy was a bad guy? What if you can prove Sageman is a bad guy?

  Yeah, right. And what if Nick won’t forgive himself?

  I know that part of him, too. It’s a lot like mine. The part that’s an abomination on the planet, a sick monster, an indecent hunger. Even if he could accept my right to live, could he accept his right to love me?

  And of course, he would have to believe that it’s love, and not his twisted attraction to magic at work.

  Nick! I howl silently, curling like cigar smoke on the floor of his Cherokee.

  Last night, I can’t help remembering, he thought it was cute that I claimed to be a vampire. Trying to make myself seem interesting to him. He told me I was already interesting to him. You’re not alone anymore, he said.

  Oh God, kill me now.

  The pain pulls back a little and I start to calm down. Optimistic thoughts return, less frothy, more realistic.

  I add up some knowns.

  Nick has a bug in Sageman’s motel room, and Sageman doesn’t know.

  Why would Nick bug his own boss? To protect him? Or because he doesn’t trust him?

  Nick lied to Sageman just now. And he heard everything that just happened back there.

  How much of it was a big surprise to him?

  A lot, I’m betting.

  Hesitant, I taste Nick’s energy.

  I recoil. He’s going nuts inside. I glance at his profile, stern and steady, and I feel his guts churning. He’s furious and confused, he feels betrayed, he feels anxious. Oh, and the boner. That’s my Nick. I could cry with grief and affection and longing and horniness of my own, if only I had eyes.

  Nick is just as messed up inside as I am.

  He may tell Sageman Yes sir, but Nick is not wholly on Sageman’s side anymore.

  Yes!

  Deep down inside, I feel a hot, clean knife of hope cut through my middle. He didn’t abandon me to Sageman. No, he waited outside in the Cherokee, listening to us talk.

  He’s been bugging Sageman and Sageman doesn’t know.

  That has to be true. I can’t see that hideous old man willingly letting anyone hear what he said to me. The way he dissed Nick. That stupid crucifix. His demand to be made into a vampire.

  And his triumph when I let him learn by reading my thoughts that Katterfelto knows where the coin is.

  Oh, hell.

  Finally, I’m forced to acknowledge what I’ve known for some time now.

  My screwy little girl-meets-boy thing is small potatoes next to the real problem.

  I’ve left Sageman alive.

  Right now, he trusts Nick. And he’s undermanned, with Macy gone.

  He’ll go after Katterfelto and force him to tell what he knows about the coin.

  As I think this, Nick pulls into the hospital ramp and parks.

  I’m in a blind panic, thinking sluggishly, wishing I could materialize, afraid he’ll catch me.

  I need to get hold of Katterfelto right now. Sooner than right now.

  Can I actually leave Jilly with Nick?

  Nick walks away and pushes the elevator button.

  Now is my best chance to call Katterfelto.

  Nick disappears into the elevator.

  I materialize naked in the back of the Cherokee, and, crouching low, call the mad scientist from my cell phone.

  “Doc, the coin is about to fall into the wrong hands.”

  Silence at his end. Then he says, “Tell me.”

  “That Federal agent introduced me to his boss. His boss is a crazy, a real scary guy. He—” I edit out the “vampire” part. “—He can read thoughts. He found out from my thoughts that you know where the coin is. I got away before he could find out that I know, too. I think. Anyway I got away. But he knows where you are. So scram. Get out of there fast.”

  “I see.”

  “Doc, don’t be a hero. I’m up to my — I’m very busy right now, but I’ll try and stop him as soon as I get—” I have no idea what I have to get. My life is coming apart in every direction at once.

  “Very well, I vill hide myself. But you need protection, Ms. Hel.”

  “I’ve got that,” I ass
ure him. If my vampire strength and energy sucking power can’t stop Sageman, the world is in more trouble than I can imagine.

  “If he can read thoughts, he may have other resources. He may find the coin first. Then vot vill you do?” I’m impressed. Katterfelto is really thinking.

  “Uh-oh,” I say.

  Dr. Katterfelto says, “Indeed. Beulah tells me she gave you the elixir. You did not take it.”

  I try to remember. I think the elixir is in my backpack in my apartment. “No, I haven’t taken it.”

  “Of course not, I understand this. That is all right. But if he reaches the coin first — or if you fear that somehow he is going to compel you to give it to him — the elixir is the ultimate weapon.”

  “Uh—”

  “Do you hear my vords? The ultimate weapon. Remember my vords. Repeat them, please.”

  “The ultimate weapon,” I repeat, rolling my eyes.

  “Goot. I hide myself now. I vill not call you, you must call me. If you are safe, you must say, ‘I haff a headache.’”

  “What? Doc, I’m in a hurry here—”

  “If you do not say this, I think he has won, and you are callink me because he compels you.”

  I remember Nick’s little speech about nice ordinary people who need a little pixie dust sprinkled on their lives, and I wonder how Katterfelto ever managed to escape getting sucked in by the coin.

  “Password. Right. Okay. Headache. I have to go now.”

  “Go mit Gott.”

  I shut my phone and dither.

  I can’t leave Jilly alone with Nick. I’d trust Nick with my life. But I don’t know if I can trust him with Jilly’s.

  Crossing fingers, toes, and eyes in the hope that this is the right thing to do, I trickle in a mist out of the Cherokee and make my way, following stairs and corridors as if I had a body, toward my mother’s hospital room.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “You’re much cuter than she told me,” Jilly is saying when I get to her hospital room doorway and stream in along the ceiling.

  “Oh,” Nick says, looking stupid and thick-necked and Federal. I trickle a little closer, until I can taste his energy.