by R. E. Carr
“That’s impossible—”
“Is that true? Am I poison?” Georgia asked Javier.
“With everything else going on, it was a detail I would get to . . . eventually. Sí, Imhotep had notes on the dangerous leukocytes in your blood. You are basically like a lob hombre on steroids.”
“Really?” Both Georgia and Mr. Lambley answered to different questions at the same time. Steve paused awkwardly for a moment. Georgia held her breath as he scanned the room.
“Ever get that feeling like you’re being watched, Gingersnaps?” He shook his head a few times. “Listen, I don’t know what happened, but someone wanted to blame you and make you suffer. You couldn’t hurt Georgia—”
“But I did! That little girl—”
“I know you tried, damn it, but you didn’t kill her. Someone is making you believe that you did, but I saw her body—”
“The hell you did! I’m right here!”
Steve shook his head. “Did you hear something?” Georgia grabbed her spoon and flipped it right at Steve’s face. It smacked him, and he flinched, but he still didn’t notice her. “I saw her body with its throat ripped out. If you had really done that, you would be dead. Come on, man—that’s not your style anyway, and you know it.”
“But—”
“I know what you did, old friend. I was there. Now, we need to pull ourselves together and figure out who really did kill her and why they want to blame you. It’s like someone wants us to tear each other apart, and I don’t want to play the game anymore. Also, why the hell didn’t you tell me that you slept with my sister?”
Geoffrey blanched even more. Georgia picked up a strawberry and munched as she kept her eyes locked on the train wreck in her parlor. “Oh no, if he slept with Minnie—” she started.
“How dare you!” Geoffrey said, a bit of fire returning to his eyes and cheeks. “Why would you even—?”
“Well, I’m about to make everything worse. You have a daughter—and I slept with her.”
Dreadful silence befell the room. Then there was the sound of a punch, and finally, a thud as Steve landed at Georgia’s feet. She looked over to Javier. “Can I have a synopsis, please?”
Georgia listened, dumbstruck, as Javier recounted the insanity of Nashville while she was inconveniently recovering from death. By the time she got to the revelation that Gail Harker was indeed the daughter of Minerva and Mr. Lambley, the vampires had adjourned upstairs. Georgia shook her head. “No, I wasn’t surprised by Gail being Mr. Lambley’s daughter—” she protested.
Javier cocked his head. “You weren’t? That was a pretty big reveal, no?”
“Not really—Minerva and Mr. Lambley used to be close, then she suddenly started acting weird and stopped hanging out as much with him and Steve; then there’s her mysterious visit to Dr. Pang . . . and, I don’t know, I guess they always just seemed awkward around each other. Now, when the hell did Steve bang Gail?”
“Celosa much, mi amiga?”
“I’m not jealous. I’m just surprised,” she replied. “Now where the hell did they go?”
“He wanted to see your room. I predict many manly tears and some brooding as, how do you say, they get out all the feels? Lo siento, but I don’t think I can be of much help. You really weren’t shocked about my—?”
“Oh my god, did you hook up with your granddaughter?” Georgia grabbed her chest. “And I’m really not jealous, I’m just surprised,” she protested again.
“I am not judging you, for obvious reasons. Also, anger seems to make Geoffrey stronger, no?”
“He’s never too weak to punch Steve. Look, if Mr. Lambley can’t see me, maybe I can get through to Steve.”
“Because you realize you are celosa, hmm? Maybe you think that your feelings can bring you back from being muerto?”
“I have feelings about Steve, not for him. It’s quite a difference—and I don’t think it’s going to help, but he can just be so damn obnoxious that—”
“I will make sure Geoffrey is OK. As much as I want to see a milagro as much as the next Catholic, I will leave you to your marido.”
“It’s just miasma, and Steve is a stubborn—”
“It is not just miasma, mi amiga. You heard what he said. He saw your body. Whatever trick Imhotep pulled, your marido bought it. His lifetime of logic and understanding will fight your existence. You are quite literalmente . . . dead to him.”
Georgia laughed. Javier raised a brow. “And what is so amusing?”
“You just said logic and Steve in the same sentence, Captain Fabulous. Think about it.”
Javier gave her a grin in agreement and helped her to the second floor. “God, I hate these stairs,” she mumbled as she parted ways with her vampire companion. Her stomach flopped again as she saw her bedroom door open and the light on. “Please don’t be too creepy, Steve,” she prayed.
Georgia paused at the door as she heard sniffles. “Oh, come on.” Her head swirled as she peered around the jamb. The Yankees hat remained respectfully hung on her doorknob, and a very different Steve kneeled at the side of her bed, his shoulders shaking.
“I’m so sorry, Sweetheart. I wish I could do better, be better, but it’s like that great philosopher always said—you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.”
“Oh Steve, that’s not philosophy—that’s from Batman,” she sighed as she leaned against her wall. “Please don’t do anything stupid.”
Steve pulled a crumpled photo out of his pocket. Georgia approached cautiously and gasped. “Where did you get that? Steve . . . how did you get that from Ren? Steve, what did you do?”
“It’s like you’re still here,” Steve whispered. “Part of me keeps hoping that all these doubts I have—”
“Have those doubts. Question everything, damn it! Please, just be the stubborn asshole that . . . that I . . .” Georgia trailed off. “No, I can’t possibly—”
“I did something awful, Sweetheart,” Steve confessed to the picture. “I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t let Arthur or Ren have any peace, not when I feel like this. I’m not a good enough person to let that bastard off so easily. Even if he didn’t kill you himself, he arranged it. Arthur told me that he arranged it, and I made him pay. I know you wouldn’t want me to. . . because no matter how much I wanted you to want me, I know that you always loved him. Even in heaven, I’m pretty damn sure you’re waiting for him, not some loser like me.”
“Steve . . . what did you do?” she asked again as she crept a little closer. “Please stop beating yourself up. I can’t help how I feel. Love isn’t something you can control. Love just hits you when you least expect it—usually at the worst possible time, and it’s ugly. It’s ugly, and awful! It . . . damn it, I didn’t have time to process or think; and whether you like it or not, I did meet Ren and I fell in love with him, and I can’t let it go. I can only be sick, and confused, and lost. For fuck’s sake, I can forgive the person who killed my parents; I can’t ignore the man I love just because an asshole vampire turned him evil. I still have to try, don’t I? I have to keep that tiny shred of hope alive that there is something impossible yet to come. Damn it, I wish you could hear me, Steve. I wish you could feel that I don’t hate you. I just . . .”
“I made him remember you again, Sweetheart.”
Georgia collapsed, all the breath leaving her body at once. The tremor started in the pit of her spine, wracking her whole frame as the seizure took hold. She cried out as her head slammed into the wall, the vibration jolting Steve to his feet. “Help me, please,” Georgia choked out. “Steve . . . help me.”
Georgia gasped for air through another violent spasm and landed once more with a thud. Everything below her neck went numb as she saw blood oozing from the tumor on her shoulder. The implanted vampire gland pulsed before erupting, anime-style. Light flooded Georgia’s vision as her eyes locked into place. The cold crept into her back as her heart stuttered, then failed, and her breathing stopped.
“
I told you, you are dead, and no amount of stubbornness is going to change this fact, Mrs. DeMarco.”
“You know, if you have to keep explaining to someone that they are dead, you are probably doing it wrong,” Georgia replied as she opened her eyes. She found herself in a neon-lit karaoke bar—a trellis of roses made of light curled around one of the monitors. Instead of Ren on the white leather seat, Merlin leaned against the cushion, rolling a beer between his eerily flexible fingers.
“You are starting to see the patterns now, aren’t you? The little glitches that show your fading mind repeating itself over and over. The roses—”
Georgia closed her eyes and listened to the familiar lyrics of Rebel Yell in the background. She looked around the sofa and saw her jacket with the blue fur flopped over one arm.
“You play the same patterns, the same tired tropes, girl. ‘Oh dear, will the stoic, handsome stranger with the tragic past sweep me off my feet, or do I belong with the slightly less attractive boy-next-door with the sarcastic jokes and the big heart? Will I fulfill my magical destiny?’” Merlin asked, now clasping his hands to his chest. “Because of all the white girls in all the world, you just happen to be amazing and spectacular! Stereotypically clumsy, except at the moment of direst need at a critical point in combat!” He dropped his hands and sneered. “Quite frankly, I’m shocked you didn’t make yourself a vampire after you tried to choose between them,” he mocked. “You’re living out some trite, young adult fantasy in your dying throes. You just happened to be listening to an eighties playlist right before the accident that took your life.”
“No, that’s not what happened. I was never in an accident,” Georgia protested. “You’re just trying to trick me.”
“Why would your own subconscious try to trick you?” Merlin asked flatly. “You were at your friend’s house. Her name was Gail. Your buddy, Paige, she came over too. The three of you stayed up late watching movies and drinking just a little too much. You wanted donuts and said you were OK to drive.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“More ridiculous than vampires and werewolves reliving an Arthurian fantasy? A fantasy that—miraculously—you happen to be in the middle of? It’s time to give in and let go. Your body is starting to fail, and reality is closing in quickly.”
“Reality . . .”
“You started to remember Steve, the real Steve. Not some vampire concoction. And an Asian boy with green eyes and magic powers? You watched Big Trouble in Little China last week.”
Tears welled in Georgia’s eyes as she looked at the phone case left on the sofa. For a moment there was a flash of light and a jolt throughout her whole body. “You mean . . .?” Georgia asked softly. She reached for Merlin, who no longer wore his snazzy suits but rather blood-covered scrubs and a mask.
“We are losing her!”
“You’ve been dead the whole time. Please, for your sake, let go before it gets any weirder, child. Just let it all fade away. It’s time to choose . . . oblivion.”
The karaoke bar faded to black. “Every story must end, Georgia, even yours.”
38
“How can you be reading at a time like this?” Lorcan asked while Gail lounged in the suite, tablet in hand.
“Not everyone is a two-thousand-year-old vampire-werewolf hybrid. Some of us have to study,” Gail replied without looking up. “You relax by pacing; I read.”
“Anything good?”
“Just a data-filled study on the long-term effects of miasma on humans.”
“Sounds fascinating,” Edwin piped up from the peanut gallery. He and his perpetually goth girlfriend, Winona, stared at screens as well but seemed more transfixed on stock reports and news tickers than the research spread over the coffee table.
“It is, actually. Don’t you guys ever try to figure out why vampires can do what you do? This professor who had a Pendragon grant studied bondsmen for over five hundred years consecutively. Considering when it started, the science behind all he did is pretty sound. I mean, most of what he was researching was how repeated miasma exposure affected the flavor of blood, but he did make some observations about how bondsmen got sick over time, mostly mentally.”
“You’d have to be crazy to hang around vampires all the time,” Beulah chimed in as she finished applying the final touches to Lady Harker’s makeup. Mina gave her servant a disappointed look.
“We should not insult those who serve us, Beulah, especially the humans.”
“What if the repeated miasma exposure is what makes bondsmen a little crazy, though? Miasma is basically a neurotoxin. One version of the chemical perpetually makes humans anxious and awestruck, and the other triggers the brain to pointedly ignore something right in front of it. Can you imagine the stress that must put on a normal mind? He categorizes the reactions as volatile—wherein the subjects become more aggressive and erratic over time—”
“Now that sounds familiar,” Mina interjected, looking pointedly at Lorcan. He rolled his eyes and fussed with the cuffs on his jacket. “Yet somehow, Neeha and most of her relatives have remained quite calm for ages.”
“That is group B—the relatively unaffected. Still there is always a higher instance of instability. What is it, Mina?”
“I was thinking of Neeha’s brother, Kunal. He did have problems after spending too much time with your werewolves, Lorcan,” Mina said softly.
“He’s actually one of the examples that got me thinking. He was exposed to a far larger-than-average dose of miasma as well as Steve’s pure venom. He was forced to forget a traumatic event, and that started a cascade failure in his mind. I looked at some other studies, too. The reports of mental illness in bondsmen and servants, as well as the incidence of suicide, have increased almost two hundred percent in the past twenty-five years, based on multiple studies.”
“That’s awful! Lorcan, darling, these were Pendragon studies, why didn’t you share them with me? If I had known that bondsmen were getting sick and dying, I would have given resources.”
“You wrote the checks. It was your damn professor—”
“These reports were in the Arce Monstrorum—” Gail started to say. Both Lorcan and Mina gave knowing sighs. “Which was Jaeger-controlled, and I’m guessing that he didn’t share.”
“The knowledge was boring and buried—at least, that’s what I’m sure most vampires would say,” Lorcan said. “Is there anything in there that will help us?”
“Guys, you’re missing my point. There is a really obvious pattern to these psychotic events. Tell me—would it be very bad for the Jaeger family if it were revealed that their poster child for reconciliation with the Pendragons was the actual cause of bondsmen going nuts? Don’t you see? It’s Steve! Ever since the sheriff has been using him as the cleanup crew—”
“Claudia wouldn’t care that humans went mad and died,” Lorcan said, rubbing his chin. “But the Jaeger do need the Matsuoka family for financial support. If it were to get out that they knew—”
Mina rose to her feet. “Darling, I think you’re overestimating the she-beast. The Arce was under the control of Klaus. While he may be a reformed soul, his one true love is crafty, and has both a vested interest in keeping her family safe, and a love of knowledge and science that would not let her destroy potentially useful information.”
“I’m missing something,” Edwin said.
“The sheriff,” Lorcan and Mina answered together. Mina continued, “Don’t worry, we’ll catch you up on the way. We also need to find Steven and try to help him. I doubt that he knows that he’s so toxic.”
“After we deal with your father, Mina. I’m afraid the plight of bondsmen has to take a back seat to figuring out Arthur’s agenda and if Merlin is on his side or ours.”
Gail gnawed at her lip as she looked at the extreme case scenario. She winced as her fangs broke the skin. Mina sat next to her and read the words, then took Gail’s hand and squeezed it, looking her right in the eyes with a reassuring smile. “I know what you are af
raid of, but just because there is a high incidence of insanity caused by young Steven’s venom, it does not mean that you are doomed.”
Lorcan smacked his forehead. “Damn it, I didn’t even think of you.”
“It’s not just her, both you and your son have received a larger-than-average dose of Steven’s venom as well. Now, before you go full broody on me, darling—you had no idea that Steven was toxic when you used him to help Geoffrey.”
“You’re still not seeing it! It’s not just us who have the crazy potential. Think about it—who else has taken a lot of Steving over time?”
“Ren Matsuoka, my poor brother’s host,” Mina gasped. “We have been so busy looking to the past to solve our current woes that we never thought of recent events.”
“Anger, violent outbursts, and dissociative behavior are all amplified with each dose of venom in the subject if they are sensitive—and the more trauma associated with vampires, the worse it gets. Guys, Steve used me to un-whammy Arthur. If he was really in love, and going through remembering Georgia . . . and possibly ordering her death—”
“We have to warn my father of this. His first loyalty is to vampirekind. He will help us find a way to ease Arthur’s mind, I’m sure of it. Dear Gail, I want you to stay by my side from now on. We need your expertise—”
“I just read some papers,” Gail protested.
“That we ancient ones have ignored for centuries. Clearly, it is time for fresh blood. Get dressed, Gail. It’s time you met Merlin.”
“Get your notes too, kid,” Lorcan added. “Science and stuff distract that old man like nobody’s business. Just whatever you do, don’t have a drink with him—trust me.”
Ten minutes later, Gail found herself sitting at the vanity. She handed a tube of lipstick to Beulah. “Definitely going to need this today,” Gail said softly. Beulah gave her a coy look.
“It’s fabulous,” she said with a little wink after plastering on the matte red. “I know you’re not supposed to have a drink with the old wizard, but maybe after all this insanity is over, you and I could go hunting together sometime? I had a lot of fun showing the thralls the ropes, but I bet you’d be even better.”