by Eve Paludan
My mouth dropped open.
“Did it work?” she asked.
“Look.” Maximus handed her a hand mirror.
“I can see myself. And I’m… flesh tone!”
I was astonished to see that the reversal had worked.
“Justine, talk to Buddy in your mind,” Maximus said.
“He just told me to tell you to take a flying leap—no one is allowed to call him Buddy but me.”
Maximus exhaled a relieved sigh. “He made it to the other side with you then.”
“He did. Am I done?”
“You’re good to go.”
“Thank you for everything.” Justine kissed Maximus on the cheek and then looked at me. “Fang, can you take me to the airport?”
Sadness washed over me. “Sure, but sunrise is soon, so I’ll have to drop you at the terminal.”
“I don’t have any luggage.”
“You only need two things.” I paused. “Your laptop and your kidney.”
“And your book,” Maximus said, handing her Thrice Greatest Hermes. “You should always take three things on a journey—one of them should be a book.”
“Thanks, but doesn’t the book belong to the occult library?”
“It was my personal copy. It’s yours now.”
Chapter 24
By some miracle, traffic was pretty light.
Justine patted the book bulge in her laptop briefcase. “I still can’t believe Archibald Maximus gave me that book.”
“There must be things in it that he thinks you should read.”
“Believe me, I’ll be burning through those pages, looking for messages, tools and paths. I’m a mortal for the second time, Fang. Even though I would much rather be a vampire, this is undiscovered country. This time around, I want to know everything there is to know about life and death and undeath. Truth.”
“Don’t make yourself crazy over that book.”
Her voice broke a bit. “We’ll keep in touch. We have phones and you could come to Hawaii.”
“What about sunlight?”
Her chin trembled. “Right.”
I was tempted to tell her about the stolen rings, one of which might let me go out in daylight. But then she would know that I’d hidden them from her and she’d feel betrayed. And she was mortal now. I didn’t want her anywhere near any cursed rings. So I kept silent about them.
We were almost to the United terminal at LAX when she said, “I don’t want this to be goodbye.”
“Don’t make this harder than it already is. I told you why we can’t be together.”
“I’ll take my chances. You would never hurt me.”
“Never say never.” I glanced at her and then back to the traffic on Sepulveda Boulevard. “Your carotid artery is pulsing just a few millimeters under the skin.”
She ignored my intimidation. “Fang, I want you to promise me something.”
“What?”
“Don’t wipe my memories.”
“I have to. I don’t want you to have all this pain when you think of me. It’s better not to think of me at all. I was going to do exactly that at the airport.”
“No! I want my memories. All of them.”
“I don’t want you to have heartbreak over me.”
“I want that pain because I want to remember you, light and dark. I want to remember every kiss, every word, every laugh and every caress. And every sorrow, too.”
She had a point, but she also knew my darkest secret. “It’s unwise to know all that you know. You know that saying, ‘If I tell you, I have to kill you?’”
“We’re not in some vampire mafia. Let me keep my memories and use them for comfort. And to keep earning a living as a vampire romance author.”
I considered that. “You’re right. It’s not like I would intentionally wipe out your livelihood.”
“Any more than I would wipe out yours. Besides, my sister knows I was a vampire and you would need direct access to her to make her forget what she knows.”
I nodded. “All right. Compromise. There’s just one memory I want to delete from your brain.”
“Your confession that you accidentally killed your girlfriend when you were a mortal?”
“That’s the one.” I swallowed, hard. “I can’t let you keep that one because you’ll have nightmares about it. When your love for me fades, I would become a monster to you. Plus, that secret could come back to bite me if you ever told anyone.”
“Never happen,” she said, even as I quickly removed her memory of my unwise confession to her.
After about ten seconds, she looked at me. “You just wiped out some memory and I don’t even know what it was.”
“You don’t need to know.”
“What were we talking about?” she demanded.
“About your sister and saving her life by giving her a kidney.”
“Right. Donor prep will roll out, as soon as I get there. They’re already getting her ready for the transplant.”
“Expect a miracle.”
“I expect her to live.”
“That’s the one.”
She said in a trembling voice, “I think you’re my soul mate.”
Oh, please, not this! “Writers are so dramatic.”
“I can’t turn it on and off. It’s who I am, inside books and outside them, too.”
Why is she making this so painful? I couldn’t look at her right now. A minute went by.
“You’re being so cold, Fang.”
It’s because I don’t want to lose you. “This is hard for me, too, Justine.”
I pulled the vehicle into the curbside drop-off area for United and looked at her. Please don’t go. Please don’t go. But I only said it with my eyes.
“I’ll never forget you, Fang.”
Oh, no, she’s really going. What should I say? “I hope you only remember the good things.”
We fervently kissed each other, but neither of us said goodbye. I was glad we didn’t. We hugged each other tightly until an airport cop came and tapped on the window with his flashlight. I rolled down the window and said, “Yes?”
He grimaced at my pale face. “Drop her off or go to the pay lot. You have thirty seconds or get a ticket.”
“Sorry, sir,” I said.
He walked back and sat behind me in his cruiser.
Justine got out and stuck her head back in to kiss me quickly. “I’m gonna text you in a minute.”
“Not if I text you first.”
That made her smile and I was glad I’d said it.
As she got out of my SUV, I removed her memory of the address of my blood club. She’d never need that information again. For her own safety and well-being, I knew we should never see each other again. I hoped she wouldn’t come looking for me, or I’d have to wipe more of her memories of us. At least, she had something to keep her warm at night. Me? Not so much.
I held back from telling her that I loved her. Instead, I texted her: When you see the green flash over the ocean at sunset, that’ll be me, waking up.
She texted back almost immediately: Fang, we ARE the green flash. And we always will be.
I watched Justine’s silhouette got smaller and smaller as she walked out of my vampire life and into her new mortal one.
I only pulled away from the curb when the cop did a little blip on his siren.
When I got home, I wouldn’t let myself break down to mourn the loss of her from my life.
Instead, I searched the Internet for female vampire gladiator pay-per-view videos.
I was shocked when I found them…
Chapter 25
Weeks later, I sat at the bar of my blood club with my favorite vampire, Samantha Moon. It was after hours. I’d closed the club and shooed everyone out because the sun would rise soon, but I wasn’t quite sleepy yet. I had my crash room in the back.
Sam was sipping a glass of “Which Witch” blood on the rocks.
“I know it’s been a while, but thanks again for sending me to
Archibald Maximus.”
“I’m glad he could make Justine a mortal again.”
“He could probably do that for you, too, Sam.”
“He probably could. Not interested.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “I like my undeath.”
“I wouldn’t want to give up flying either,” I said. “Was Archibald Maximus the one who made you the rings that let you eat food and go out in daylight?”
Sam smirked.
“Forget I asked.”
She sipped from her glass and licked her lips. “I haven’t seen my witch friend for quite some time, but I’d know her blood anywhere.”
“Her ‘Which Witch’ blood is too special to give just anyone a drink of it. It’s on exclusive reserve for you from now on.”
Sam smiled and changed the subject. “How are Justine and her sister?”
“I don’t know. She sent me a text earlier this week, but I never opened it.”
“You can’t run from your feelings.”
“Since when did you become my vampire shrink?”
“Information is power, Fang.”
“Fine.” She’d texted: The transplant was a success and the recovery was fast. We’re going home to Celine’s house tomorrow in Maui.
There was an attached selfie of the twins hugging each other and smiling.
I showed my phone to Sam. “She has blue eyes instead of black vampire eyes.”
“She looks happy.”
I texted back: That’s great news.
Justine texted: I miss you, Fang. I love you so much.
I didn’t want to say it in a text because I hadn’t said it in the flesh. So I texted back: Be happy, Justine. Enjoy life. And then, I turned off my phone.
I gazed at Sam. “I should have taken away all of her memories of me, but she said it would be cruel—she also needs to be able to draw on those memories to keep writing her books.”
“Just because Justine’s mortal, don’t throw it away if it’s the real thing. You could make it work if you wanted to.”
I shook my head. “If I ever have a girlfriend again, she has to be a vampire, or maybe even a werewolf. Anyway, she’d have to be a supernatural. No mortal girlfriends.”
“Because of what happened to your first love, years ago, when you were mortal?”
I didn’t want to talk about it. “Sam, don’t go there.”
“Have you considered that when her sister is completely out of the woods, that you could just turn Justine back into a vampire?”
“Bite your tongue,” I said.
“I couldn’t help but notice the chemistry you two had.”
“It was much more than that.”
“I know. Do you love Justine?”
I made myself look busy by getting up and wiping down the already-clean bar.
She took a sip of her bloody drink. “You’ve always been there for me, Fang, before I ever met you and we were just chatting online.”
“I lived for those online chats, back in the day.”
“Those were tough days. My kids were little. I was struggling with my new vampirism, trying to figure out my husband’s rejection—everything was up in the air. I was in crisis mode a lot. But you were my ear and my rock.”
“Thanks. I couldn’t wait for ‘Moon Dance’ to come online for a chat. It was the highlight of my life.”
She nodded. “I have similar memories of us before things got this complicated. You were my friend, my confidant, my sounding board when I hardly knew anything about you.” She gave me a measured look. “I still hardly know anything about you.”
“You know me better than anyone, Sam. Kingsley holds second place.”
“Justine knows you better than either of us.”
“Maybe.”
“You could still be in danger.”
“I am.”
“Do you want me to take this on as an investigation? Find out who’s in charge now of what’s left of Genghis Khan’s vampire army and where Khan is hiding out to lick his wounds?”
“Can I think about it?”
“I could give you a deal.”
“It’s not the money. It’s just… what do I do with Khan when I find him? And if I manage to kill him, what do I do with the next guy who takes over when I find him? Kill him, too? And the next? Will I become a cog in the wheel of the vampire turf wars in Southern California?”
“I think you already are.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. I don’t want to be a vampire warlord. I just want to live a nice quiet life running this place and enjoying the beach at night on the weekends.”
“Just let me know if you want me to pursue it. I guess I worry about him finding Justine.”
“Surely not,” I said. “She’s mortal and in Hawaii.”
“She won’t be there forever. Justine could use her writer’s research notes to find this place again,” Sam said.
I rubbed my hand over the five a.m. shadow on my face. “I didn’t think of that when I wiped her memory of the blood club address. But I really don’t think she’ll come back, now that she’s mortal. Sometimes, love isn’t enough when you know ugly things about someone.”
“Oh, Fang. Did you tell her what you did to your first girlfriend and she got spooked?”
“Yeah.”
“You should have never told her.”
“I told her and then took away the memory, but you should have seen Justine’s face. She understands that vampires sometimes kill for a meal, by accident or not. That would have been forgivable, but hearing that I was actually mortal when I sucked my girlfriend’s blood and accidentally caused her death… well, let’s just say her face showed her shock and revulsion.”
“The irony is harsh, isn’t it?” Sam roughly rubbed my shoulder. “It’s true that sometimes, love isn’t enough to stay with someone. You have to trust them, too.”
“Do you trust me, Sam?”
“I always have.”
“You mean, except for when I was with Detective Rachel Hanner and she had me under a compulsion?”
“My bad. Except then. If I could have stopped your turning from happening with her, I would have.”
“All my life, I wanted to become a vampire.”
“I know.”
“But I didn’t come here from Missouri to be turned by just any vampire.”
“I know that, too.” She looked away for a moment and then our eyes met again. “In hindsight, if I would have known everything that was going to go down…”
“It wasn’t like you were going to accommodate my wish to be turned.”
“At that point in my undead life, I wasn’t ready to rip my best friend from his mortal coil.”
“Was it a mistake for you not to turn me?” I asked.
“We’ll never know.” Sam’s phone beeped until she shut off the app. “That’s my reminder to get the kids ready for school. I have to sign Tammy’s English homework. She was supposed to write a nonfiction essay, a character sketch of someone she knows. Unfortunately, she wrote it about the werewolf lawyer who is dating her mom.”
“Oops.”
“Tammy had to redo the nonfiction assignment last night.”
“Who did she finally write about?”
“My sister, Mary Lou. She emailed me her assignment entitled, ‘Louie’s Got a Gun.’”
I chuckled. “Oh, no. What’s that about?”
“About my sister’s wish to become a private investigator. It’s actually pretty good. It’s about a married woman with kids who is going for what she wants, despite her entire family’s disapproval. It’s a solid B+ paper, I think.”
“That’s a relief, I’m sure.”
Sam nodded. “When the dust settles over this homework fracas, I’ll be explaining to Tammy that the concept of nonfiction means something different to her English teacher than it does to her.”
“Sounds like such a human problem.”
“It is.”
“Teenagers j
ust blurt whatever they’re thinking.”
“And you know this because you have kids?” Sam chided me.
“Very funny. I was a teenager once.”
She shuddered. “I try not to think of my teen years. Acne, stupid boys, peer pressure, self-image woes and parental issues. Now, I’m reliving the nightmare through my daughter. The worst part is that I see myself in her annoying precociousness. She doesn’t know it, but I did all the smart-ass things that she does. She’s a mini-me.”
“Wait until Tammy gets a driver’s license,” I teased.
“I should kill you for saying that.” Sam got up from her barstool, but then turned back toward me. “One thing I’ve learned is not to look back at the past.”
“I look back because I try to learn from it,” I said. “But I keep watching the future as it gradually unveils the divine mysteries of undeath.”
Sam did something that surprised me. For the first time in maybe a couple of years, she gave me a hug. “You’re coming into your own as a vampire.”
I was embarrassed. “I’m just a work in progress.”
“Aren’t we all? Fang, I want to tell you something.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ve had a mortal boyfriend.”
“The boxer?”
“Yes. And I have mortal children. And mortal friends and family. My boxing coach, Jacky, my sister, Mary Lou. My investigation clients. I never lust after their blood. And it took some time, but it became automatic that no harm would ever come to someone I cared for or worked for as a result of my blood hunger.”
“How did you do it? By drinking mostly animal blood?”
“I used to think that was the reason. But I’m starting to think the greater truth is: trauma did it.”
“What do you mean?”
“One day, something traumatic is going to happen to you, too, but you’ll triumph over the tragedy and overcome the adversity. The shock of it all will jolt you to that turning point where you’ll purge your baggage and trust yourself because you’re finally comfortable with who you are in your vampire skin. Not just comfortable in it, but you’ll celebrate it as the birth of something that gives you a greater purpose. And when that turning point comes, you won’t ever again perceive yourself as a monster waiting to strike—you’ll know you deserve love because you can truly and finally give it.”