One (Rules Undying Book 6)

by R. E. Carr

  Georgia raised a brow as she saw three limes, an onion, and some really unripe bananas mixed in with peaches, apples, and pears. She lifted a cluster of tomatoes on the vine out, so they would stop squishing the gorgeous strawberries and donuts down below. “Well, you tried, I’ll give you that.” She eyed the bag. “Is that . . .?”

  “I paid a little visit to your partner in failing at death, sí.”

  “How is he?”

  “Still not dead, so much the same. Imhotep was particularly vexed again, so I took great pleasure in watching him and gloating for a solid veinte minutos before I did the shopping and came back. It is strange, but I think that someone else has been here.”

  “I get that feeling too,” Georgia whispered. She grabbed her chest and winced. Javier chewed his lip in concern.

  “How much pain? I can steal Vicodin . . . Percocet . . . pure morphine if you like. I think I have a wee bit of cocaine stashed somewhere—”

  Georgia raised a hand in protest. “I’m good. There is some ibuprofen on my vanity. Let’s start with that and work our way up.”

  Javier scoffed a little but pulled her generic drugstore bottle out of the drawer. He stopped to flip through some little blue and green books. “Jennifer and Tyron Lee, hmm?” Georgia sniffled. “These are very good Matsuoka work.”

  “Well, I used to date a very good Matsuoka,” she deadpanned. She scooted so that she could be upright to take her pills. “Also, I think some of my ribs are clicking. That can’t be good.”

  “You need to—”

  “If you say rest, I’m gonna scream. I’ve been stuck in a bed for weeks—not planning on making it a habit.”

  “With all due respeto—” He stopped short as he took in her face. “At least take it easy. It would be quite depressing to find you more muerto than you are right now, no?”

  “Heaven forbid I actually get good at dying.” She laughed a little. Javier helped her to the side of the bed, brought her slipper socks and her own comfy clothes.

  “Now, I am going to go get rid of all that nasty fruit juice from Geoffrey’s bathtub fortress. Do you want me to save it for you?”

  “He backwashes—no thanks.”

  “Very well, just try to get better. I won’t give you any other sound advice because I know it is your nature to defy it, mi amiga. Hasta la vista—”

  “Baby,” she finished for him in a terrible Arnold accent. As soon as he left, she changed into her own clothes, groaning at how baggy everything had become, particularly in the chest area. “Why must my boobs always volunteer as tribute, while my ass stays huge?”

  She eased into the hallway, waving to the blur that dragged bottles out of her bathroom. Occasionally, a moan would echo from the recesses upstairs. Georgia took her time on the steps, managing to get all the way down without too much trouble. A moment later, her grocery bag appeared on the newel post. “Gracias, Captain Fabulous!”

  “De nada,” she could hear from the shadows. She found herself in the kitchen, rooting around for soap and soaking the obnoxiously crusted cups. Bit by bit she wiped down counters, put away clutter, and cleaned out anything fuzzy that remained in her cabinets. Her eyes lit up as she discovered unopened oatmeal and a can of evaporated milk. A few minutes later, porridge was bubbling on the stove, and she turned her attention to pulling out the blender jar labeled “G.L.” rather than “G.S.”

  Georgia took her time, pulling out a green sippy cup and a red and white striped straw. She dumped the unused half of her milk, some vanilla, and a little freshly-grated nutmeg into the glass. Once satisfied with the Christmas-cookie aroma wafting to her nose, she went to the freezer to get ice and a two-pack of Python’s Choice whole frozen rats. Once that was blitzed into a vile, pinkish paste, she thinned it with the blood dregs left in the fridge. “Not my best, but it’ll do,” she said as the mixture plopped into the Kelly-toned plastic. She then turned off the stove and let her oatmeal lava start to cool while she once more made a timid trek upstairs, cup in hand.

  “Are you . . . cooking and cleaning, mi amiga?” Javier gave her a surprised look as he saw her in an apron with beverage in hand. “This is what you choose to do with your time left?”

  “You faked your own death, and you’re really questioning my life choices? I’m going to try and talk to Mr. Lambley again, and maybe—just maybe—this will get through to him.”

  “With a tasty blood milkshake?”

  “Pureed rat with vanilla,” Georgia countered. “It was always his favorite.”

  “He won’t notice it, mi amiga.”

  “Then you can clean it up later.” Georgia choked back her dread and slowly approached the upstairs bathroom. The door squeaked a little as she entered, but Mr. Lambley remained firmly focused on the healing slashes on his wrists and arms. She set the cup next to his hand, but true to Javier’s word, the vampire didn’t notice. Georgia sighed deeply and lowered the toilet seat, so she could sit and stare at her wreck of a former boss.

  “What happened to you, Mr. Lambley?” Georgia asked softly. She closed her eyes and just waited. Her only response was a little muffled snort. “What’s happened to me? Here we are, both of us suffering, alone, in the same tiny room. I just wish you could give me some answers, but . . . I guess that is impossible.”

  Both sighed in unison. “I am truly sorry, Georgia,” Mr. Lambley whimpered. “I could never control the monster that I am.”

  “Mr. Lambley! Mr. Lambley, can you hear me?”

  He continued to stare into space. “There are times when I can even hear your sweet voice, my dear, but I know you are gone. I know that it is my fault. I just wish I could say that I was sorry.” Geoffrey reached down and gingerly picked up a sliver of the mirror. He dropped and squealed like a little girl as he saw something in the reflection.

  “Please Mr. Lambley, just see me. I am right here! I’m right here, damn it.”

  Mr. Lambley grabbed his ears and sobbed. “Damn it to all of Dante’s hells, I can still hear your voice.” He calmed a little and nodded. “Yes, I deserve this torture. I deserve it after all that I did to you and to your family. Mother was right; we all get what we deserve as the wheel spins—”

  “Deserve? Mr. Lambley, are you crazy? This isn’t about what we deserve!” Georgia pushed to her feet and slammed her fist into the wall. “There is no karma, no fate, and no goddamn destiny! The only way I’m still holding on to the last shreds of my sanity is knowing that the universe is random. It is chaos, and by Satan’s nutsack, nothing is fair. The only thing that is fair is that we all have an equal chance of succeeding or suffering at any given moment.” She breathed heavily as she leaned against her aching fist. Mr. Lambley grabbed at his ears and whimpered. Georgia choked back her tears. “All any of us can do is try our best and take comfort that everyone is equally screwed in the end! And maybe be kind, and forgiving, and try to do less harm than good for other people before we die. It would be so awful to think that you, or me, or Ren, or even Steve—that anyone deserves this kind of crap, Mr. Lambley, so if you do nothing else, just hear what I’m saying. Please just . . . hear me.”

  Mr. Lambley looked to his left and gasped. He reached his trembling, pudgy, pathetic little fingers towards the general area of the sippy cup. “No, it cannot be. I am so sorry, Georgia. I can still . . . I can . . .”

  Georgia slid along the wall and knelt before the quivering would-be vampire lord. “Mr. Lambley, you’ve done some terrible things. Hell, you’ve done terrible things to me . . . but the irony is, I don’t remember them. Me, the girl that vampire mojo never works on. Just stop this, OK? Stop beating yourself up . . . please.”

  “I want you to know that I’m so sorry,” Mr. Lambley whimpered. “I am so sorry for what I have done.”

  “Sorry doesn’t change what happened. As cruel as it sounds, no amount of sorry will bring my parents back . . . or me back, for that matter. Sorry only matters for your guilt. I don’t know how to reconcile all this, Mr. Lambley. I know deep down tha
t I should hate you, but I don’t. To me, you’ve always been someone to be saved, not thrown away. So . . . if you want to do something to make it up to me for all the damage, then live. Please live, Mr. Lambley. Live long enough to do enough good things that it really won’t matter so much what mistakes you’ve made. You can’t change them, but you can learn from them. I guess . . . I guess that means that I forgive you, Mr. Lambley. I have to because I don’t want to waste whatever time I have left here wandering around like Frankenstein’s ghost being bitter, and hurt, and angry. I just want you to try. I want you to try for both of us—or I have died for nothing. Damn it, Mr. Lambley, even if you can’t see me or hear me, maybe you can feel what I’m feeling! Just . . . stop being sorry and do something!”

  Georgia let all her tears loose, sobbing as she slumped over the toilet. Time stood still for ages as she cried her heart out until finally she heard the tiniest, most innocuous of sounds between her sniffles. She heard a slurp.

  Mr. Lambley held the green cup in his hands and stared in wonder at his favorite straw and the smiley face on the lid. He took one sip, then another before finally setting it on his knees and whispering, “How can this be? If I sit here and rot and die, who will ever remember Georgia? I must . . . I must do something.”

  Georgia watched him fumble and stumble and even fall a few times, but the pasty old vampire managed somehow to prop himself on the edge of the tub and gingerly sip his drink. She wiped her tears and slowly made her way back downstairs, so she could choke down a little food of her own. Georgia had just managed to dip her first strawberry into her bowl of oatmeal when she heard the backdoor latch. “Javier?” she called out, but there was no reply. “Captain Fabulous, is that you?”

  Her heart tightened in her chest as she saw a tall, lean silhouette in the frosted glass. A gloved hand wrapped around the door as the visitor struggled with a box and the slightly sticky jamb. “No,” Georgia whimpered as she saw a distinctive line of tattoos in her ugly kitchen fluorescents.

  “I brought round two!” a cold, British voice called. Georgia dropped her berry. Tears rolled from her eyes as she saw the source of Geoffrey’s gin and juice bounty. Her shoulders shook at the sight of green eyes and black hair.

  “Ren, no . . . not you too,” Georgia choked out. “I’m not ready for you too.”

  “You still alive up there? Do you think you’ve suffered enough, old friend?”

  Georgia stared at the strange contrast of Ren’s face under a hoodie and a Yankees baseball cap. He also carried keys in his right hand. She looked deep into his eyes and saw a very different kind of rage to the sadistic bemusement she had seen before in Italy.

  “You’re not Ren,” she whispered. “And you’re not Arthur. Javier!”

  The stranger wearing Ren’s face stopped cold and looked over at the table. Georgia held her breath. He shook his head and began walking towards the stairs. “It’s that time again. Are you ready to face the music?”

  “Stop!” Georgia shouted. The stranger paused and shook his head again. “Please, leave Mr. Lambley alone.”

  “I am afraid that is not possible, mi amiga. Those two, they have unfinished business, and I do not think you want to get involved—”

  “The hell I don’t! That is not Ren. That is not Arthur either—but whoever he is, he is torturing Mr. Lambley, and I am damned well going to stop him!”

  “I am warning you, you will only be hurt when you find out—”

  “Gingersnaps, I brought carrot juice this time—your fave.”

  Georgia let out her breath all at once. She clutched her pounding chest and closed her eyes. “How can it be . . .?” She found the strength deep within her to power up the stairs. Javier remained aloof at the base.

  “This is your milagro, not mine, señora. Buena suerte.”

  “What the hell happened to you, Gingersnaps? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d forgotten what I asked you to do. What is that you’re drinking?” This time the voice broke into an American accent at times. Georgia had to steady herself against the wall outside, her head swirling as the stranger said bitterly, “I want to know why you did it. Why did you kill her?”

  “Mother always said that we are bound to certain places . . . certain people. I will die here. I cannot leave . . . I have to—”

  “Damn it, that is not what I asked! They told me there was no compulsion, no goddamn miasma, so why did you kill her? Why did you kill Georgia? Why did you kill . . . my wife?”

  “I . . . lost . . . control. I remember her blood. It was the sweetest I had ever tasted in all my days. One taste again, and I was doomed to finish what I started in Atlanta. I know that Georgia never believed in fate, but it’s like you always said, Grandfather. Fate is your most faithful little dog. It always comes back to find you. I was doomed to finish. I remembered the taste too well.” Geoffrey devolved into horrific sobs. Georgia heard bottles crash against the tile.

  “Damn it, Steve! He didn’t kill me,” she wailed through the wall. “I’m still here.”

  The world stood still. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even breathe.

  “You didn’t kill her, Geoffrey. Oh, my god . . . you didn’t kill her,” Georgia heard Steve whisper from within the bathroom.

  37

  “You know, I never thought I’d be eating oatmeal while hearing two vampires argue about my death,” Georgia said as she sat in an armchair in her parlor, breakfast on her TV tray while Javier brought her a steaming cup of tea.

  “It is a first for me too, mi amiga. It is definitely on my bucket list now, though.” Javier grabbed a mug of blood right off the kitchen counter, forcing a confused Steve-dressed-as-Ren to go back to the fridge to pour a new mug. Georgia bristled as she saw her Red Sox cup being filled with viscous bodily fluids.

  “Oh, don’t microwave the blood, Steve,” Georgia groaned as she heard it whirring to life. Javier wrinkled his nose at his cup. “I’ve told him we have a bottle warmer, but he didn’t listen to me even when he could hear me.”

  Javier lounged on the hearth beside her, sipping his overheated humors while Mr. Lambley shivered on the sofa. “You are confused,” Mr. Lambley protested. “You’re not—”

  This time when Steve walked out of the kitchen, he wore his own face. His ginger companion gasped as Steve pulled back his hood. “Yeah, I inherited a few things,” Steve explained with a shrug. “Just try to eat some real food, Gingersnaps.”

  Mr. Lambley clutched onto his sippy cup with a death grip. He ignored the mug set next to him and even hissed as Steve tried to take his cup away. “Fine, whatever!” Steve muttered in a passive-aggressive huff. “I said drink real food and stop trying to drink yourself to death. Are you really so stubborn that you won’t listen to my whammy voice when I’m trying to help you?”

  “You ordered him to drink himself to death?” Georgia asked incredulously. “So, what—are you going full method asshole when you transform into Arthur?”

  “Remind me not to get on your bad side, mi amiga,” Javier interjected.

  “You said . . . your wife. Now I know I must be dreaming because there is no way that Georgia would ever consent to marrying you, or was that more tomfoolery since you wore that Matsuoka boy’s face? Perhaps I’m not dreaming. Maybe I have finally gone mad.”

  “The world has gone mad, Gingersnaps, and I’m sorry I didn’t invite you to the wedding, but we were kinda on the run from your grandfather at the time—and in Italy—and Estella was there, so it really wouldn’t have worked out. Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, then there was a giant werewolf fight; Arthur poisoned me to ruin our wedding night; and to top it all off, Georgia got shot—”

  “You let Georgia get shot!”

  “A minute ago, you were blubbering that you thought you killed her, and suddenly you are concerned about one bullet?”

  “Oh, don’t you go changing the subject. How was she injured after you stole her away?”

  Georgia started to tune them out and eat her bre
akfast again. Javier raised a brow. “Once those two get going, it can be a while. You were right—I need my strength before I get into this fight. It’s weird, but it’s kinda nice. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m home.”

  “They are still going, you know.”

  “Yup—but if he’s arguing, he’s not trying to kill himself.”

  “I may try to kill myself if they keep going much longer, señora.”

  “Good thing we are already dead then,” Georgia said with a tiny smile. Javier returned the gesture. Eventually their breakfast was gone, and Steve and Mr. Lambley had finally managed to get back to the subject at hand. Georgia sighed softly as she watched Steve tuck his friend into the afghan.

  “Please, just listen to me, Gingersnaps. You didn’t kill Georgia.”

  “Thank you!” Georgia added from her corner. “No one killed me.”

  “Technically—” Javier started, but Georgia shot him a glare, and he meekly slurped the remainder of his blood without further comment.

  Geoffrey’s eyes welled with tears. He took Steve’s hand. “I know that you want to believe in me, but I know that I failed. I tasted her blood, and I lost control—”

  “No! Listen to me—if you’d drunk her blood, you would be dead.”

  “What?” both Geoffrey and Georgia exclaimed.

  “But I remember—” the ginger vampire continued to protest. “I remember all the horrible things that I did. You cannot take that away.”

  “I did take it away, and Minerva decided she needed to undo all that hard work I put in saving you the first damn time.”

  “I drank her blood—”

  “When she was just a little kid! You didn’t kill her then, and you didn’t kill her now. Something went wrong when Lorcan saved her. The same thing that made her immune to our abilities makes her blood poison. Even Lorcan got sick from drinking her, and just a sip nearly killed me. That’s how I know that you didn’t drink her blood. If you had, believe me—you’d be dead.”