Bite Somebody Else

by Sara Dobie Bauer

  The first thing that came to Imogene’s mind was, Oh, fuck, because Amora was just as beautiful as she remembered—and wearing nothing, it appeared, but a black silk robe that stopped just below her ass, revealing long latte-colored legs and toes painted red.

  “Nicky,” she said in that stupidly adorable foreign accent and reached a hand out to touch his face.

  Nicholas visibly stiffened and backed away.

  Ever cool, however, Amora just ran her extended hand through her own long, black hair and smiled her big, red lips—which she then licked. “You look so handsome, darling.” She exuded the exotic scent of a long dead queen. “Please, come inside. I had hoped we might have some time alone, but—”

  Imogene stomped in like she owned the place. She’d opted for her black combat boots, just in case she needed to boot a bitch in the face. As soon as she got near the big, canopied bed, she smelled it: fresh blood. She stopped with one boot in the air and lifted an eyebrow at Nicholas, who—based on the furrow of his brow—noticed the scent, as well.

  “Have a guest recently?” Nicholas asked, folding his hands behind him and standing to his full height. True, he wasn’t as long and lanky as Ian, but he still had the presence of someone who could not only kick ass, but recite poetry while doing so.

  Amora draped herself over a cream-colored couch. “Oh, just a pretty thing I brought home for a snack.”

  “Amora, you’ve been murdering humans.”

  “Me?” She put her hand to her chest. “I would never do such a thing. We both know that’s against our modern day rules. Don’t we, Nicky?” She batted her eyelashes.

  Imogene groaned. “We smelled your skanky perfume at the crime scenes.”

  “Skanky?” Amora pouted her lip. “I don’t know what that word means.”

  “Whore,” Imogene said. “Big old vagina, open for business.”

  Nicholas opened his mouth to stop her, but before he said anything, a black shadow flew across the hotel room. The next thing Imogene knew, her back was against the wall, a vice was around her throat, and Amora’s dark brown eyes were black—and an inch from her face.

  “I don’t take well to impertinence, little girl.” Amora licked her huge fangs.

  “Yeah, well.” Imogene thought about the vampire zapper on her key ring but instead kicked Amora in the shin with her steel-toed boot, which made the old wench let go and hop around the room yelling, “Ow, ow, ow.”

  Nicholas had his hands in his hair. “Imogene.”

  “What?” She shrugged.

  “Please.” He took hold of her shoulders and led her to a cream-colored chair that matched the elaborate couch. “Just sit.”

  “Nicky,” Amora whined from where she leaned against the bed, rubbing her leg.

  “What are you doing here anyway?” he asked.

  She regained her poise with an upward tilt of her chin. “I heard Florida was very nice this time of year.”

  “It’s like fish-scented hell.” Imogene tapped her toe, loudly, until Nicholas put a hand on her knee.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said.

  Amora took another pose—one possibly stolen from some Renaissance painting. It was like the woman had a card catalogue of sexy poses stuffed in her tiny robe. “I wanted to see you, darling.”

  Nicholas shook his head, slowly. “You know better, as I have no interest in seeing you.”

  Amora continued without blinking. “Imagine my surprise to arrive and find you’d already taken a new lover. Although her clothing does leave something to be desired. Perhaps I will take her shopping.”

  Before Imogene could even scoff, Nicholas gently put his hand over her face. She sat there, sniffing his palm.

  “Amora. You will have nothing to do with my life here or the people I am here to help. I thought that was understood.”

  “Olivier only wanted me to check on things. You are here on Stadium Lamia business, or have you forgotten, darling?”

  Imogene pulled Nicholas’s hand from her face. “If you call him ‘darling’ one more time, I will curb stomp you.”

  Amora’s eyes brightened, and she smiled with teeth plus fangs. “Does she love you, Nicky, like all the others you’ve left? Hmm?”

  “No.”

  “Like Rain, perhaps?” She twisted her long hair between her fingers. “I’m sure your reunion has been quite enjoyable for her, although I understand she has become a hunter—and has a handsome human boyfriend, no?”

  Nicholas stood there, frozen. “How long have you been in Lazaret?”

  Amora laughed, and it sounded like piano wires breaking. “Long enough.”

  For a long moment, no one spoke. Imogene watched Nicholas as he stared at Amora, brow furrowed and lips quirked to one side. She stared right back, although her look was more… yeah, she looked like she was peeling away each and every piece of his suit, one strip of fabric at a time.

  “Fine,” he said suddenly. “Imogene.”

  She hopped to her feet at his side.

  There wasn’t any gold tint to his eyes as he stared at Amora—just a ring of dark, deep green. “You won’t kill any humans during your visit, and you’ll stay the fuck out of my way.”

  “What language, Nicky. I think you’ve been hanging out with your American girlfriend much too long.”

  Before Imogene could retort, Nicholas grabbed her hand and dragged them both away from the hotel room that smelled of blue lotus, blood, and—hard to deny—deaded human.

  Back at Imogene’s place, Nicholas didn’t say anything. He just face-planted onto her couch, legs hanging over the arm. She stood in the kitchen. “Uh, hungry?”

  “No.” His voice came out muffled through a pillow.

  She sauntered over to the couch and knelt by his face. She pulled off her t-shirt. “For me?”

  He opened one eye and looked at her. “I can’t.”

  “You’ve never had that problem before.”

  He didn’t respond.

  Imogene sighed and ran her fingers through his hair. “She’s just an angry ex. She’ll go away.”

  “Mm,” he muttered, then wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her breasts.

  “My maker texted earlier,” she said, arms around Nicholas’s shoulders. “He wanted some blood and sex. I told him I was busy.”

  “The caveman-looking fellow I met in your hallway?”

  “Yeah, Wharf. I’ve never turned him down before. I thought he was gonna cry.”

  Nicholas kissed her stomach. “I can understand.”

  “Nicholas.”

  “Imogene.”

  “I’m sorry, this is really cute and all, but I’m starving.”

  He let go of her and rolled onto his back, eyes planted on the ceiling.

  “You sure you don’t want to eat?”

  He sighed but didn’t say anything.

  Imogene went to her kitchen where the fridge hummed happily. She dug around for her usual bag of B-negative and pulled out Celia’s favorite, A-positive, in the hopes that drinking Celia’s brand might brighten the man she… the guy who…

  She tossed both blood bags on the island and thought about busting out the blender, mixing up some B-negative and vodka—lots of vodka. From where she stood, she could only see Nicholas’s dress shoes, where his feet hung over the arm of her couch. She chewed her lower lip. Maybe the ache in her stomach wasn’t just from hunger. Maybe the ache in her stomach was impending doom—not in the apocalyptic sense or anything but more in the what-have-I-gotten-myself-into sense.

  She took one long, soothing breath (she’d always been a believer in deep breathing) and stomped back to the living room, where she put a cup of A-positive on the floor for Nicholas. She sat next to his plastic Happy Gas cup and reached for the TV controls to scroll through Netflix until she found exactly what she needed. She slurped her bag of B-negative just as the screaming started, and Nicholas shifted on the couch behind her.

  “What the bloody hell are we watch
ing?”

  “Reanimator.” She gargled a big gulp of blood around her mouth before swallowing.

  His eyes found the screen. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed, watching a guy’s eyes explode from his head.

  “Why are we watching this?”

  “I find horror movies soothing. It’s like, yeah, my best friend is having a vampire baby. Your homicidal ex-girlfriend is obviously trying to get you back. I’m annoyed by how much I enjoy spending time with you, but at least my eyes aren’t exploding out of my head, right?” She slurped some more.

  “Blimey.”

  “Same with straight up slasher flicks. The screams are totally relaxing. Some chicks like watching romantic comedies when they’re down, but I don’t get that. Everything’s all sunshiny and bright, and everyone’s all happy at the end. That’s not what life is. Life is exploding eyeballs.” She gestured to the TV. “And reanimated corpses. Metaphorically.”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t like how much I like you, Nicholas.”

  “Okay.” He didn’t move.

  She looked over her shoulder at him. “See, things like that. You’re not supposed to be okay with that. You’re supposed to want to have a discussion or something.”

  He smirked. “Or something.”

  She spun back around. “Let’s just watch the movie.”

  He picked up the plastic cup of blood and took a few sips behind her. Immediately, his scent filled the room, and she closed her eyes to the comforting sounds of Barbara Crampton’s screams and a hissing cat.

  “So horror movies make you happy,” Nicholas said. “What else?”

  “Sex. I think you knew that.”

  “I did, yes. What else?”

  “Dancing. I think you knew that, too. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be one of those girls in music videos on MTV. I have the wardrobe for it. Shit, I wanted my own dance show.”

  “Why not do it now?”

  “Doesn’t seem to matter as much anymore—being famous. I just wanted all that stuff to get away from my family and small town life.”

  “Which you did.”

  She chuckled. “Not in the way I expected.” She leaned her head to the side as he kissed up her neck. “What makes you happy?”

  “Drawing. Painting.” His breath tickled her throat, but then, just like that, he hopped away from her and went running upstairs.

  “What the…” His hurried feet disappeared, but he was back with just as much speed, this time, with his small sketchbook in-hand.

  “Here.” He handed it to her and sat on the couch, legs framing her body on the floor. Strong hands massaged her shoulders.

  “I thought you said this was private.”

  “It is.”

  She held the sketchbook like it might bite. “So why are you showing it to me?”

  “If you don’t want to see it…” He moved as if to take it from her, but she pulled it away from his grasp.

  “No, I want to.”

  He went back to massaging her shoulders and watching Reanimator as Imogene opened the sketchbook. The pages weren’t yellow or aged; they were white and new, covered in drawings, which meant she didn’t hold some ancient relic. Realistically, if Nicholas were the artist he seemed to be, he probably had piles of sketchbooks hidden somewhere. This was merely his most recent.

  At first, there were pictures of clouds and a plane wing, probably depicting his trip across the ocean, from England to America. There were scattered drawings of people she didn’t know—probably strangers he’d seen in airports or restaurants. She found a quick sketch of two people dancing, and she only recognized them because of Ian’s hair, depicted in big, wild waves of pencil lead.

  Then, Imogene stared into her own face. She turned the page and recognized her own profile. There were a few full-body sketches with so much detail she even knew the outfit depicted, piece-by-piece. Nicholas had done painstaking studies of her eyes and mouth. One whole page was nothing but whirly-gigs of curls.

  Page after page after page.

  “Me,” she said. “They’re all me.”

  He kissed the top of her head.

  “Why would you—?” The sound of her phone singing the chorus of Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” cut her off. She sighed, reached into the side of her combat boot, and answered. “What’s up, Merk?”

  It wasn’t Celia on the phone. It was Ian, and all he said was, “We need Nicholas.”

  Despite the tender moment, Nicholas moved into action—or, more so, he didn’t trip over his feet when Imogene forcibly dragged him outside and threw him into her car after getting his medical bag from upstairs and putting her shirt back on. She broke the sound barrier on her way to Celia and Ian’s house and came crashing through the door, shouting. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Ian stopped mid-pace. “Um, Nicholas?”

  He stepped around Imogene. “What is it, mate?”

  Ian gestured to the bedroom. His hair was huge, which meant he was stressed.

  Nicholas sprinted past him and into the bedroom, Imogene on his heels, and they found Celia on her back in the bed, face scrunched up in concentration.

  “What’s happening?” Imogene screamed.

  “Shh,” Celia said. She put her hand over her big belly. “Nicholas, I think we need your stethoscope.”

  He took out the required equipment and sat carefully on the edge of her bed. With the cold metal thingy on Celia’s bulging tummy, Imogene watched him listen. He listened some more, then backed up suddenly, so much so that he fell off the bed and landed on his ass, feet in the air.

  She stomped forward. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Celia snorted.

  Imogene stared down at Nicholas, whose mouth was half open like he might say something—but didn’t. His left eyebrow lingered up around his hairline like a thin, red caterpillar.

  “Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on?”

  Which was when she heard it, quiet at first, like a whisper: “Fuck!”

  “Who said that?” Imogene tilted her head.

  Again, soft and quiet, slightly garbled like someone speaking underwater: “Fuck! ”

  Nicholas latched onto her ankle from where he still sat in disarray on a pile of what smelled like clean laundry. “The baby is talking. Inside her stomach.”

  “No.” Imogene, forgetting her momentary fear of pregnant bellies, held onto Celia’s hips and pressed her ear against stretched skin. She waited.

  When the word “fuck” echoed against her ear like a cave reverb, Imogene, too, fell off the bed and into Nicholas’s lap on the floor. He must have sensed she was about to start screaming, because he covered her mouth with his hand.

  “Our baby’s first word is ‘fuck.’” Celia tittered, half hysterical.

  Everyone in the room turned to look at Imogene.

  She batted Nicholas’s hand away. “Not my fault!”

  “Of course it’s your fault! Every other word out of your mouth is ‘fuck,’ Imogene.” Instead of sounding pissed, as Imogene might expect, Celia laughed again. Ian sat on the bed next to his wife and swayed. All the color had drained from his face.

  Nicholas must have noticed. “Ian, are you all right?”

  He looked at the way Nicholas was splayed across the bedroom floor. “Are you all right?”

  Nicholas brushed Imogene and a few discarded socks from his lap and stood. “Yes. Right. Okay. The baby is talking. In your stomach. Totally fine, yes.” He dragged his hands through his hair. “Bollocks, I’m lying. I’m not okay. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  Imogene stood. “Told you your bedside manner could use some work.”

  Nicholas pulled on his hair, agitated. “In the history of the bloody planet, Imogene, this has never happened. Ever. How can I be expected to know what’s going on if it’s never happened?”

  “He has a point,” Ian said.

  “Has it said anything else?” Nicholas aske
d.

  “She sounds like a girl,” Celia announced. “Don’t you think she sounds like a girl?”

  Imogene stared at her best friend. “Are you tripping out? Why are you so calm?”

  “Well, she’s obviously healthy. She’s talking.” Celia smiled.

  “Inside your stomach! She’s talking from inside your stomach, Merk!”

  “So you do think she sounds like a girl.” Celia smiled some more.

  “She’s off her rocker.”

  “Imogene.” Nicholas put his hand on her arm. “Bring her some blood. Please.”

  She growled and acquiesced. When she closed the fridge in the kitchen, Ian was right next to her. “Ah! Damn it! I thought you might be the talking demon baby.”

  His brow furrowed.

  “Sorry. You’re not having a demon baby.” She took a long sip of A-positive and winced at her least favorite flavor. “What are you doing out here?”

  Ian reached for a PBR. “Nicholas is asking about her symptoms. I thought I’d give them a second.” He cracked the beer open and chugged half.

  “Ian, are you okay?”

  He chewed on his lower lip for a couple seconds. “You know, nothing really surprises me. I kind of wish her first word hadn’t been ‘fuck,’ but it seems fitting with you as her godmother.”

  They leaned side by side against the fridge. “What if she starts having, like, full on conversations?”

  “You think that’s possible?”

  She snuck another sip from Celia’s blood bag. “There’s an unborn baby swearing inside your wife’s stomach and I’m only fucking one person. Anything’s possible.”

  “How’s it going with Nicholas anyway?” Ian finished his beer and reached for another.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Are you being roofied?”

  “No. I just don’t know what’s going on. With us.”

  “Have you told him about Mule yet?”

  “No,” she hiss-whispered.

  Ian shrugged. “Maybe you should. When you’re with someone, you’re supposed to tell them stuff.”

  “I tell him stuff,” she said.

  “Important stuff,” Ian amended.

  Then, Nicholas called from the bedroom: “Blood?”