The blood is somewhat along the lines of Japanese tonkotsu, equals parts gummy and milky, but once the adrenaline hits it becomes a shimmering harvest bouillon with a bouquet aroma worthy of being sipped and scented like fine wine. My compliments to the family. Four out of five stars.
The paper crumpled in Mindy’s fist. Lucia had stopped her chanting and taken her hand away from his mouth. Her wound had closed up. She looked stricken. She reached for Mindy, but Mindy brushed her hand away, moving to Seb. She leaned her head forward until it was against Seb’s chest. She could feel the steel rod’s hardness on her forehead.
When was the last time they’d talked? Really talked? She’d barely spoken a word to him at Bakula’s house as he rescued her. Nothing like goodbye. No, the last time she’d said anything real to him had been at the Sadie Hawkins Dance. He’d asked her if he was cool.
“So cool.”
* * *
“We have to get inside,” Mindy said, seconds, hours later when she could think again, or at least put words to the animal impulse to flee. “We have to get where it’s safe—”
“Safe?” Lucia laughed, a teetering giggle that sounded nothing like her. “There’s no safe, Mindy, there’s just fucked. We’re fucked! Bakula’s got the whole town in his pocket. He’s… You saw him, Minz. He’s not human. He’s not even a little bit human. He’s gonna come after us, or he’s gonna come after our families, or…whatever he fucking feels like. We don’t have a say in it. I can’t protect you. I can’t do a goddamn thing to protect you. All this shit and I can’t do anything.”
She was casting her eyes all around, looking for some new threat, but finally they settled on the oak tree in Mindy’s lawn. She charged it, not stopping until she’d slammed her fist into its trunk, the force of the blow splintering wood, shedding leaves from the branches. Lucia hit it again and again, bark flying away from her fists, whole twigs falling as the impacts shot through the tree.
“Lucia, you have to calm—”
She swung her elbow into the tree like a lumberjack’s axe, putting a solid notch deep into the trunk. A branch fell, Mindy having to jump back as its clumsy heft splashed onto the ground. Then Lucia dug her fingers into the wedge and pulled, ripping the tear wider, uprooting the tree in places, the entire thing toppling down to a nasty angle, roots pulled up like exposed bones.
It’d been too easy. Lucia’s fury was barely spent. She screamed in frustration and it was like steam escaping, her wounds reopened, fresh blood pulsing silver in the moonlight.
Mindy took hold of the hem of her dress, ripped at it, tore, finally taking a chunk out and going to Lucia, embracing her from behind and bandaged her wounds as best she could. “Calm down,” Mindy said, willing whatever peace she had into Lucia’s body through their chilled contact. “It’ll be alright. Everything’s gonna be alright.”
Lucia was pliant as a doll then, worn out more emotionally than physically. She let Lucia move her around, bring her inside and up the stairs and to her room. There, she sprang back to something like life. She hacked, she hawked, finally spitting out a pursed bullet onto the carpet.
“Too much iron in my diet,” she said, clearing her throat as another one came up.
“Drink me,” Mindy said. “You need it.”
Lucia looked over her shoulder as best she could, her face streaked black and red like warpaint. “No.”
“It’ll calm you down. It’ll help you heal. Then we can think about what to do. Just… c’mon.” Mindy moved a shoulder strap out of the way.
Like the cool breeze that rushed in, Lucia’s eyes shuttered on the bare expanse of skin, from the plunge of her breast to the curve of her throat.
She moved in, teeth clamping down where her eyes had marked a target, but all she did was rake her canines across Mindy’s skin. Just hard enough to leave thin white lines behind her, the ghosts of scars. Her chin set on Mindy’s shoulder and she breathed uncertainly, nearly hyperventilating. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”
“You won’t hurt me,” Mindy replied, sure, and she pricked her fingernail into her skin where her neck joined her shoulder, making the blood well up until it finally beaded out.
Lucia kissed the cut, kissed it, never breaking the skin, kissing it, just sucking hard on the cut. Mindy hummed, pleasure cut with pain, felt Lucia’s tongue dance across the wound, widening it, extracting electric blood from deeper inside. Her hands bunched into fists; she felt Lucia’s hands tightly grab her wrists, thumbing her pulse points. Mindy could feel her pulse, thundering into Lucia’s fingers, those fingers that had been inside her, touched her clit, skimmed her lips before they kissed.
Lucia wrenched herself away, blood cherry-red on her lips. She was shuddering. Mindy could see; simply holding herself still took all the will in her body. “I won’t be able to—” She broke off. Her fangs were growing from her teeth; they’d taken her by surprise.
“You’ll stop. I’m not leaving you.” Their eyes met. Mindy’s mirrored in Lucia. Knowing Lucia wanted this just as much as she did. Knowing Lucia was as afraid as she was. “I’m never leaving you.”
She bared her throat. Didn’t even see Lucia move in, catch her by the neck and whip her around like a dog with a rat, jamming her into the soft abyss of her bed. She stiffened, cold flesh on her body, teeth sinking into her like ice forming in her veins. Her head rolled back, eyes open seeing nothing but darkness. Cool, comforting darkness.
There was no difference between pain and pleasure. Her breath quickened and she was breathing for Lucia, in rhythm with the tattoo Lucia’s lungs once set. Her fingers dug into Lucia’s back, feeling the heat of her own blood being horded there. Every drop of it sung with the joy of being devoured.
“Fuck me, fuck me,” Mindy chanted without air in her lungs, “don’t stop, fuck me, don’t stop…”
But Lucia’s hands didn’t move, had no interest in her warm cunt, her burning breasts. They were locked on Mindy’s skull, holding her still as she drank. Drank so deep she sucked up Mindy’s senses, Mindy’s world—the smell of the ruptured engine, the sound of Lucia’s gasping swallows, the taste of Lucia’s absent kiss. Her sight went last. Mindy closed her eyes, sighing, opened them, and someone had stolen the stars out of the dark sky.
Mindy’s wordless chant stopped. She struggled to change it, play a different tune on her one-track mind—“Easy,” she begged now, letting her fear show. “Take it easy…”
Mindy couldn’t feel anything, just the insistent pulse of Lucia’s sensations, burning bright in her mind. And through it, Mindy felt her own love and affection reflected back at her, still clinging to her body like cut puppet strings. It was so pure. Mindy couldn’t blame Lucia, killing for it.
“Stop.” She gagged on emptiness. “Lucia, stop…”
Her own mind, her own body had stopped. She just felt Lucia filling her up. She felt how much Lucia loved her, needed her. Finally, at last. She was empty enough to know the full scope of Lucia’s hunger for her; enough hunger to kill her.
“You’re hurting me…”
She felt Lucia’s heart beating for her, just for her. A pounding rhythm. A fire set by blood running hot. Roaring in her ears, smashing into her, waves of heat washing over her, beating all the louder to make up how Mindy’s own heart dwindled. Tapped, scratched at the walls Lucia had put up. Not able to be heard, not able to be cared about…
The ghost of Mindy still moved, a scarecrow in the breeze that gently ruffled their dresses. Her body was not her own. It was Lucia’s hunger, their hunger, the animals in their love so distant from what Mindy had fallen in love with. It confused what was left of her. She was cold. Unthinkingly, she stroked Lucia’s head, stroked at the rabid fierceness that was draining her. She asked why as everything turned not dark, but golden. The color of Lucia’s soft, warm skin. Why?
It was her last conscious thought.
* * *
The hospital reduced all her thoughts to a third-grade reading level. The bed was soft. The walls wer
e white. The IV needle was cold. The doctor was kind. He asked her if she was in any pain. He asked her if she needed anything. Then he pressed a cell phone into her hands and told her the Coach wanted to talk to her.
There was only one number in the phone’s memory. Speed-dial 1. She held the number down, then put the phone to her ear. Silence.
“I know it’s you, Mina. I know your breath, even across the telephone wires.
“You didn’t have to kill him.”
“You didn’t have to run. There’s a reason I let you grow up apart from me. This town is full of your friends, your family. Come to me or there will be more taste tests.”
“I want Lucia proven innocent. I don’t want anyone hunting her.”
“Very well.”
“Alright then. How long do I have to say goodbye?”
“Oh. Big game tonight. We’re taking on the Peniel Pathfinders. After we trounce ’em, I’ll swing by to pick you up. Is that enough time?”
“Yeah. I guess it’ll have to be.”
She hung up. She could still see Seb, how he’d hung there. It numbed her. She supposed that would make things easier.
* * *
The police asked their questions. Mindy didn’t know why they bothered. They were already pinning it on Lucia, asking about her jealousy, her rivalry with Seb over Mindy. Mindy didn’t give them an inch. After thirty minutes, they stopped trying. Bakula called his dogs to heel and she went back home, to sleep in her own bed one last time.
A creature lived next door to Mindy. It lived in Lucia’s house, where it wore Lucia’s clothes and ate Lucia’s food. Slept in Lucia’s bed. But it was not Lucia. It did not have Lucia’s eyes, it did not have Lucia’s smile, and it did not have Lucia’s love.
Mindy was afraid of it, and Mindy could never be afraid of Lucia.
She lay awake in bed all day. During the day, she could almost believe it was Lucia. But as night fell, and the moon came out. Then she knew.
Mindy fingered the gauze that covered her bite mark. Underneath, the wound was sensitive enough to ache against her touch. It shook her body like the last drip of adrenaline from that old attack. Maybe she wasn’t human either. Maybe there was a little beast in her, just like Bakula said. Because she could hear the front door of the next house over creak as it opened.
Lucia didn’t come in over the rooftops. Maybe it seemed too intimate a pathway for her to take. Instead, Mindy could hear—she could’ve sworn she heard—the yellowing blades of Texas grass crinkling under Lucia’s bare feet. It crackled, it creased, it shattered. Always louder, always closer. Until Mindy could feel Lucia under the second-story window.
Lucia’s nails daintily scratched at the house’s wood and fiberglass as she climbed up in defiance of physics. She didn’t really need a grip to climb. It was more like a gesture. An old habit that couldn’t be broken, even in death. Then those long and pointed claws struck the window. The sound was not the shriek of nails on a chalkboard. It was low, musical. The claws moved over the glass, slotted into the jamb. The window opened smoothly. Not with the jerks and heaves Mindy would need to exercise on it. Her and her human hands.
Bare feet touched down on the carpet. The thing that wore Lucia? The thing in the Lucia-suit?
Whatever it was, it padded across the room. No rush. No hurry. Mindy stayed under the covers. She felt the approach; she didn’t hear it. She couldn’t hear her make a sound.
Maybe it was just her. Maybe she was too loud. The blood rushing in her veins, the adrenaline electrocuting her blood, the sizzle of thoughts in her head as she debated with herself—what was it? How could it be Lucia? How could it look like Lucia and not be her? And her heart. Her heart pounding, no, thudding, like it was being slammed against a brick wall, again and again and again.
The thing—the void in the world Lucia had left behind, that walked and talked to fill her absence—stood over her now. It looked at her. Mindy wished she could look into those sky-blue eyes and find herself. See the gentle mocking in Lucia’s expression, or warm bemusement, fond embarrassment. Nervous love. But she knew all she’d find would be hunger. Just like the last time.
She didn’t want to see.
The thing that had been Lucia gathered her blanket in its sharp claws. Pulled it down Mindy’s trembling body. Underneath her, the mattress pad was miserably wet. Soaked with sweat. She’d had a nightmare about this before waking up to it happening.
For the first time, Lucia made a sound. The clicking that put Mindy in mind of mechanical pencils, Zebra pens. A small sound for the grotesque process of her teeth shifting, parting, letting her canines extend from her gumline like the tips of icebergs being dredged up to the surface. Fangs that were cold and sharp and true. The one real thing, the one thing that belonged to the creature and hadn’t simply been inherited, stolen from Lucia.
Hands set down on the mattress, bedsprings quietly groaning with their pressure. Mindy opened her eyes. Normal hands. Normal fingers. Nails cut short, even. She looked up and her heart stopped pounding. Not a good thing. More like it was finally, steadily being crushed against that brick wall.
Lucia kissed her gently on the cheek before pulling back to smile down at Mindy. Showing every one of her teeth. Even the fangs. “Move over,” Lucia’s voice said. “I wanna spoon.”
Mindy didn’t move, so Lucia just flopped down next to her on her side.
“Don’t touch me,” Mindy said. Her voice was dull and blunt.
Lucia looked down at her hands, dark as shadows on Mindy’s pallor, her bandage, and pulled them back. “Minz—it’s me. It’s not Bakula, he’s not gonna hurt you, I’m gonna take care of you.”
Mindy sat up. “Bakula didn’t put me in the hospital. You did. You hurt me. I nearly died…” She slapped at her bandages, stirring up a faint pain. She let the spark of it be magnified by an anger, be a fire, be an inferno. “I have other people’s blood in me! My blood is gone!”
Lucia looked back at her. All pain. No defensiveness, no retort, just pain. And fear. “Do you want me to get out of the bed?”
“Yes,” Mindy said.
Without hesitation. Lucia moved away from her like she’d been stung. Stood there with her hands on her head, looking panicked.
Mindy felt her fear and almost heard her thinking, frantically thinking. “I’m not angry with you,” Mindy said, some absurd part of her wanting to be conciliatory.
Lucia put a hand down on the bedspread, eyes begging for Mindy to take it. “Please be angry with me, please be furious with me, just please don’t be breaking up with me. Don’t you do that.”
Mindy could be so cold, she surprised herself. “You said you would never hurt me.”
“I didn’t want to.”
A hysterical laugh nearly dislodged Mindy’s jaw. “You said you loved me!”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen!” Lucia said it like she was pleading. “I didn’t want for it to happen, it was an accident! Everything was just so horrible and I knew, I knew that if I started drinking you—you were the only thing, are the only thing, that felt right and I couldn’t stop myself and…” Lucia blurred, all the speed in the world but nowhere to go, fidgeting in place until she fell to kneel at the foot of the bed like a dog. “I never wanted this! You remember, I didn’t want to drink you, you wanted that, I was so afraid I would hurt you! And then you said it was okay, you said, and we tried it, and I didn’t hurt you, and you liked it, and everything was good! I thought I could control it, I swear to God I thought—we never have to do it again, I’ll never even show my fangs in front of you again, I don’t want your blood, Minz, I never wanted your blood! I just want you!”
“I said.” Mindy repeated the tiny phrase like it was an error in Computer Science II, fucking up her program, keeping it from compiling. “I said. So it’s my fault then, is it?”
“No.” Lucia got to her feet. Her face looked drawn. Like a dead woman’s. “No, it’s mine, I hurt you and I have no right to ask for your forgiveness. But I�
�m asking. I’m weak and I love you and I want to keep being the person you make me.”
“You sound like Bakula. The two of you—you’re both just obsessed with me. What is it, do I smell good, do I taste good?”
“I am not like Bakula!” Lucia insisted.
“No, you’re not, because you’re getting what you want. Me. But if you couldn’t have me, would you accept that? Or would you be like him?”
Lucia just stood there.
Mindy thought a piece of herself was dying; the piece that couldn’t bear to do this to Lucia.
“You love me,” Lucia said. “You said it, you don’t get to take it back!”
“Just because I love you doesn’t always mean I can be in love with you.”
Lucia pulled on her hair. “Fine, I’m not as smart as you, I don’t know what that means!” She felt the tear worming down her cheek and clawed at her own face to get it away. “Just do it. Say you revoke my invitation. I’ll go—I don’t have a say in it. It’s all you.”
“I don’t want to revoke your invitation—”
“Then don’t.” Lucia moved on her suddenly, unable to resist Mindy’s pull any longer. She took Mindy’s hand and pressed it between her breasts. “It’s me, Minz. Just wait a minute, and you’ll feel my heart. How many times have I even kissed you? A hundred, two hundred? I have a million more kisses for you. I make you laugh and I sing to you and I was such a good girlfriend, wasn’t I? I loved you. I do love you. Please, Mindy, let me keep being in love with you. I don’t know how to stop.”
Mindy felt cold air whistling through the ribs where her heart was supposed to be. “Why didn’t you stop?”
“I couldn’t—at the end.”
“And before? Why’d you even bite me in the first place if you knew—”
“Because I didn’t want to tell you, I didn’t want to say it: I’m a monster, Minz. I was supposed to die and I didn’t and that death clings to me. Gets on other people.”
Ex-Wives of Dracula Page 35