“Non-fiction,” she says, then laughs. “Though most of my colleagues would beg to differ. Tell me, Ms. Banks”—she steps close, tilting her head down so that she gazes at me through long lashes—“what do you know about alchemy?” Her sterling eyes flash.
“Um, alchemy?” Caught off guard by the sight of my reflection in her gaze—and the last thing she ever saw was silver—I smile uncertainly and shake my head. “Not much. Sorry.”
“We've got some books about Robert Boyle in the science aisle, and I just shelved a Philosopher's Stone pamphlet under folklore,” Azure says brightly, appearing at my side. “It's a facsimile, though, not an original.”
“Hmm.” The woman nods thoughtfully. “That's a start. But I'm more interested in transmutation.”
I lift my brow again. “You mean, like...changing lead to gold?”
“Something like that.” A slow grin. Her eyes slide over me, pausing when they reach my lips. I feel my own mouth open, and I'm staring at her lips, too, at the pointed teeth revealed as her teasing smile slowly widens. By arousal or instinct, my heartbeat speeds up; my breathing goes shallow...
I want to run from her.
I want to kiss her.
God, Courtney, you have a girlfriend. A small but crucial fact I've blissfully and uncharacteristically ignored since this woman stepped through the door.
It's the pheromone. It's got to be the pheromone...
She turns toward Azure. “Can you show me where the Boyle books are?”
“Absolutely!”
Chatty Azure leads the woman between the shelves, leaving me alone with my wobbly knees and achy chest. I stagger behind the desk and busy myself by shoving the junk mail into the shredder and checking the store's email account on my laptop. There are three requests for books we already have in stock. I respond to each message, but I'm so distracted that I misspell my own name in one of the replies, and in another, I catch myself writing vampire in the place of acquire—which doesn't even make sense.
By the time Azure reappears, I've calmed my nerves and cold-showered my hormones—more or less. But my voice is unnaturally high when I ask, “Any luck?”
The woman shakes her head; her red waves shine like copper beneath the store's amber-colored lamplight. “Sadly, no.”
“Oh. Well, I'm sorry, Ms.—”
“Máille. Valeria Máille. Call me Lare. And don't apologize, Ms. Banks.” Her glance, with its startling silver, holds me in place.
“Please,” I tell her, licking my lips, “call me Courtney.”
Azure shoots me a startled look. I blush again and glance down at the desk. But I got rid of the mail, so there's nothing for me to pretend to be interested in. I lift my gaze, offering Azure a pathetic, “Well, can you really blame me?” smile.
Normally, to maintain professionalism, I insist that customers refer to me by my surname only. Being a female business owner is tough enough. Allowing customers to call me Courtney opens the door to unwanted familiarity, and before you know it, they start coming up with all sorts of patronizing, cavity-inducing nicknames: sweetie, honey, sugar, cutie pie, cupcake. A guy looking for a copy of Moby Dick referred to me as “cupcake” once. Once. After the feminist diatribe that Azure and I subjected him to, he never dared to call me “cupcake” again. Or to come back into the store.
As Azure tells the tale, he left with his “little Moby Dick flapping like a dead fish between his legs.” In reality, he knocked over our Jane Austen display and flipped us the proverbial bird on his way out the door. (Later, Azure and I decided that the animal he most resembled was a sea cucumber.)
So my asking this customer to call me Courtney is entirely out of character. And entirely out of line.
After all (I have to remind myself again), I've been in a committed relationship with Mia for five months.
Guilt clenches my stomach. I shake my head and stare at the store catalog on my cell phone. “If you give me some keywords, I can perform a search of our inventory. I have access to our suppliers' inventories, too.”
“Clever device.” The woman smiles, resting her hands on the top of the desk. Her fingers are long, the sharp nails painted charcoal gray, almost black. “All right, then. I'm looking for anything you might find regarding the research of an ancient Roman alchemist named Maximinus. I've already sucked the Internet dry—”
I glance up, wide-eyed, and she laughs softly, offering me a sheepish smile.
“Sorry. I have a tendency towards puns.” Sliding her sleeve up over her arm, she presents her wrist to me: its smooth surface is tattooed with a large black V, facing outward. Below the V is a series of numbers—45832. Her registration number. By law, all vampires are required to have one.
“I'm sure you already guessed.” She winks, and her eyes gleam, sky blue and polished silver. “But transparency is important in any relationship, don't you think?”
I nod, too flustered to respond.
This woman, this vampire—Lare—smells like sugar and lilies and sex. A quick glance at Azure tells me that she's equally smitten. But Azure's single. I, on the other hand... Self-reproach bangs around inside my chest like a pinball—remember Mia; Mia, your girlfriend.
I type Maximinus into the search bar on my phone's screen. “Zero results.”
Lare sighs. “I expected as much. He isn't well known, even in scientific circles.”
I clear my throat, exit the app, and place my cell on the desk. “Well, the next step is to send out requests to our network. Is there anything else you can tell me about this guy? Was he affiliated with anyone famous—or infamous?”
“He was a contemporary of Galileo. And his work was kind of...fringe.”
I gaze at her. “Fringe?”
She shifts, ducking her head down bashfully. Adorably.
Mia, Mia, Mia, my girlfriend Mia...
“Um. Yeah. He was kind of into...” She exhales and smiles, shrugging her shoulders. “Well, blood.”
“Oh. Blood. Of course. I mean—” I shake my head. “Not of course. Just... Well, you're a... Sorry. That's—I shouldn't have said of course. I'm sure you're interested in all sorts of things besides...” I cough into my hand; my face is burning up. “You know.”
But Lare laughs, leaning toward me. “I am interested in all sorts of things. And”—her voice lowers as her shining eyes search mine—“all sorts of people.”
“Oh,” I squeak.
“Oh,” Azure says, running up to the desk and staring at me pointedly. “Court, it's past closing. Don't you have a movie date with Mia tonight? You know, Mia? Your girlfriend? Mia? Remember?”
“No.” I shake my head, feeling even more flushed as Lare lifts her chin, gazing back and forth between us, looking perplexed. “I don't think—”
“You do. I'm sure you do.”
Eyes narrowed, I return Azure's stare. She isn't an interfering sort of person. If she's telling me that I have a date with Mia tonight...maybe I do? I've been stressed out lately. Thanks to Randolph Palmer's new marketing campaign, our sales have slipped over the past two months, so I've been working longer hours, and Mia has been preoccupied with her position at the paper. We have short conversations on the phone, Mia sleeps at my place a couple of nights every week, but we haven't gone out in...a while.
And I haven't felt emotionally connected to her in, well, a while.
And if we scheduled a date for tonight, it slipped my mind completely.
The guilt in my gut has alchemically transmuted itself from a pinball to a bowling ball. And not a pink, glittery, seven-pound bowling bowl. It's one of those stupidly heavy bowling balls, the kind that makes you stagger as you struggle along, trying desperately to avoid dropping it on your foot...
“You're closed; I should go,” Lare says. She reaches into her pocket and draws out a business card, which she presses into my hand. I shiver a little when her palm touches mine—but not because her skin is cold. It isn't.
Contrary to folklore, real vampires don't have cold skin.
They do tend to be a little pale, but not pancake-makeup pale, and they can enjoy the sunshine without repercussion, so long as they wear sunglasses during the brightest hours of the afternoon to protect their sensitive eyes. Best of all, they're able to subsist on non-human (i.e. animal) blood quite comfortably.
Or so I've heard. Most of my vampire knowledge (or lack thereof) has been garnered from overheard conversations, magazine headlines, and late-night entertainment shows, embarrassingly enough.
“Give me a call if you find anything. Anytime.” Lare's mouth curves up on one side, baring the tip of her right incisor. “I hardly ever sleep.” She arches a brow, and her gleaming eyes sweep over me—slowly, thoughtfully. When they meet my gaze again, they look crystal blue, soft, inviting...and a little amused. She smiles, and I smile back, despite the flutter of anxiety in my stomach.
Lare turns toward Azure and offers her a small wave. “Thanks for your help.”
“Sure, no problem.” Azure rounds the desk to stand beside me, and we both watch as Lare leaves the store, the string of large jangling bells tied to the door pull announcing her exit.
Then, in sync, we look at each other, stare at each other, shake our heads simultaneously—in mute and mutual wonder—and then sigh.
“Did that really just happen?” Azure asks.
I bite my lip.
“You've got the hots for her, don't you, boss?”
I bite my lip harder.
Azure slings her arm around my shoulder and gives me her Courtney, what were you thinking? look. Then she says, black eyebrows raised high, “Courtney, what were you thinking?”
“I don't know!” I tell her, feeling my stomach squeeze. “I don't know, all right? I just... It was so weird. And... Well, nothing happened. Nothing's going to happen. God, I haven't been attracted to someone like that since...” I start to say Mia, but I pause—because, well, I've never been attracted to anyone like that, not ever. It had to have been the pheromone... “Hey, Az, do I really have a date with Mia tonight?”
She nods, her eyes wide. “You're supposed to go the movies. Did you forget?”
“Um...yeah. I guess I did,” I tell her with a sigh. “We didn't talk about it last night. Or...I don't remember talking about it. God, am I a terrible person?”
“Hey.” Azure gives me a quick squeeze and then lets go. She leans against the desk, chuckling softly. “Relax. Lare threw me for a loop, too. You know what they say about vampires. They ooze sex appeal. They give off these, like, sexy, invisible secretions. Like they're wearing some kind of human-luring perfume. Makes sense, you know. They're at the top of the food chain. Or were, before the government got involved.”
“Yeah.” I frown, unconvinced, and fall into the chair. “Yeah. I guess that makes sense.”
“Geez, you look beat, Court. Why don't you take off? I'll close up. No worries.”
I smile at her gratefully.
When I first met Azure in a literary criticism class, she had straight black hair and called herself Lauren Blankenship. But since then, she's undergone a personal metamorphosis, transforming—just like one of those cartoon superheroines—into purple-haired Azure Skye, local folk rock star. And part-time bookstore employee, because she doesn't earn enough from singing gigs yet to cover her bills.
“Thanks, Az. You're—” I begin, but my phone starts buzzing on the desktop.
“Don't tell me it's the Walrus again.” Azure crosses her arms over her chest, obscuring the giant pink triangle on her t-shirt. “Here—let me handle him.”
“No, it's Mia.” I glance down at my phone, see her picture on the screen and feel another twinge of guilt. I pick it up, press send and say, “One second, baby,” into the receiver. Then I cover up the mouthpiece with my hand and ask Azure, “Are you sure you wouldn't mind closing the store tonight?”
“Sure as the shore. Consider it done.” She smiles warmly, pats my shoulder, and then shoves me—hard—off of the chair. “Go, go! Chill, unwind. Do something shockingly sexy. With Mia,” she tells me, her lips twitching into a smile, “not the vampire.”
“Azure, I wouldn't—”
“Kidding.” She winks. “Obviously. Anyway, as the Bard would say: Go, girl, seek happy nights—”
I snort. “My idea of a happy night is a long, hot soak in the tub with Jane Eyre and a bottomless glass of wine.”
Azure frowns. “Well, Mia might not appreciate your bathing with another woman—fictional or otherwise—but whatever floats your boat, Court.”
“See you tomorrow, Az,” I laugh. “And thanks for the favor. I owe you one.”
“You don't owe me anything, boss. Except cash money. Hey, you're still coming to the music fest, right?”
I nod, grabbing my purse from a shelf under the desk. “Already bought tickets for Mia and me.”
“Awesome. I think it's actually going to sell out!” With that, Azure hefts her abandoned stack of books up from the floor and disappears down the second aisle, singing softly to herself—something about female oppression and diamond rings and dirty diapers. She's been writing and recording her first album, Words that Rhyme with Misogyny, over the past couple of months, but I've never seen Azure perform on stage before; up until this point, she's forbidden me from attending her shows, insisting that she wasn't ready for peer reviews. So I've only heard snippets of her lyrics sung beneath her breath. Azure has this husky, melodic, Melissa Etheridge sort of voice. Sexy.
And she is sexy—with her purple mohawk and her gauged ears and her '80s-era Madonna fashion sense.
But we tried dating back in college, and when we fell onto the couch in Azure's dorm and started making out for the first time, we both laughed—hysterically—for a full fifteen minutes. The kissing itself wasn't laughable. Azure is passionate about everything she does, and she kissed me like she meant it. But it just felt...funny. Weird. Like we were kissing our sisters. So we made a pact then and there that we worked best as friends. And over time, we became best friends. And, eventually, co-workers.
I hurry out into the wet, humid air, the shop bells jangling behind me as the door creaks shut. There was a thunderous downpour a couple of hours ago, and the gray sky is still sprinkling. “Mia?” I say, holding the phone to my ear. I cross the street, splashing through puddles, and aim toward my junk heap of a car. Then I swing the door open—I never bother locking it; any car thief would be doing me a big favor—and fold myself onto the ripped, camel-colored seat with a sigh. “Sorry about that, baby. What's up?”
“Oh, God, you're never going to believe this, Court! You know that activist I was telling you about the other day? Drew Yarrow? She's the one who—”
“Yeah, I know who she is.” I lean back against the headrest and close my eyes for a moment, exhaling through my nose. My damp hair is sticking to my forehead, and there are wet strands clinging to my white button-down shirt. I shove my hair behind my shoulders as I stare, unseeing, at the water droplets gleaming on the windshield. “Drew Yarrow got arrested for staging that violent protest outside the Cincy Safe Center. It was all over the news. And I told you, Mia, that I don't think that's something you should involve yourself with, not for the sake of a story. It's dangerous and—”
“But I had lunch with her today, Court, and she told me what happened, what really happened. The networks got it all wrong. The rally was supposed to be peaceful. It only got violent because some vamps came out of the Center and went after Drew's group. One of her guys got bit—”
“Mia!” In lieu of gaping at Mia herself, I gape at my cell phone. “You're a newspaper reporter. Consider the source. Besides, that woman was convicted of hate crimes—”
“The charges were dropped. She was totally set up. There's so much corruption involved in this, baby. Oh, my God, the stories she told me...”
I cradle my forehead; my temples are throbbing to the rhythm of the rain, which has begun to fall hard again, pattering on the car's roof. “Of course Drew's going to tell you that she wasn't to blame—”
“It's true, Courtney. I can read people, you know. That's what makes me a good reporter. I know when someone's being straight with me, and Drew Yarrow is as straight as they come.” She pauses, then laughs. “Well, she's not straight straight. Just honest. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, Mia,” I mutter, staring at the rain streaking down my windshield. “I know what you mean.”
Mia and I have been dating for five months, and when you've known someone for five months, you begin to notice patterns of behavior. Little things, like the fact that Mia always craves ice cream after sex, and big things, like the fact that Mia develops hero-worship crushes on women she finds fascinating. She's assured me that she'd never act on any of her crushes, but once upon a time, I was her crush. And she left her girlfriend of two years to begin a relationship with me.
So, Exhibit A: My girlfriend is infatuated with an anti-vampire radical—who (coincidentally enough) happens to be a lesbian.
Exhibit B: As of five minutes ago, I have a crush on a vampire.
I draw in a deep breath, but the bowling ball has become a boulder.
The ground beneath me feels shaky, tilted...
And I feel sick.
Sighing, I shove the key into the ignition with unnecessary ferocity. Then I gasp, disbelieving, because Colonel Mustard starts on the first try.
Well, at least something is going right today.
I switch my cell onto speakerphone and drop it into the empty cup holder.
“So, anyway, I know we had plans to catch that new Tilda Swinton movie at the Cineplex tonight—” mutters Mia, like she’s rehearsed the line.
I pull out onto the road.
“—but Drew's anti-vampire group—they're called SANG—is having their weekly meeting at seven, and I just kind of wanted to check it out, you know, because there might be a killer story there. Vampire journalism is so hot right now, and, I mean, a well-known leader of the AV movement? What a catch! I haven't had a big article in months. Malcolm threatened to demote me to Obituaries if I don't pull a rabbit out of my hat soon.”
The Vampire Next Door Page 2