by Molly Harper
Jane protested, “But Burt retired on Friday. We had a party for him and everything. With cake! And more than half of the guests can’t eat cake.”
“Well, his cubicle is located in one of the biggest open-plan areas of the office, so it wasn’t secured. Plus—and this is not a knock on older people—but his password was ‘burtspassword.’ ”
Jane’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding.”
Gigi shook her head. “Nope, but I did disable Burt’s username and accounts, just in case.”
“Thanks, Geeg,” Jane said, scrubbing a hand over her face as Gigi jogged back to the IT office. “We’ve never had a system failure like this before, ever. And it just had to happen when we have a freaking auditor here. Has Weston heard about this? I didn’t even think about that before I made that announcement, I just didn’t want the stupid virus installed on more of our computers. And I may have panicked a little bit.”
“Hey, I would much rather travel on a ship whose captain yells, ‘Man the lifeboats,’ instead of ‘Just a minor brush with an iceberg, folks—back to bed,’ ” I told her.
She snickered. “That’s one perspective, I suppose.”
“And yes, Weston is aware of the problem. He was with me when you made the announcement.”
“Really?” Dick said. “What was he doing down in the archives? He seems to be paying you an awful lot of attention, Hippy-Dippy.”
I was aware I was avoiding eye contact with Dick and Jane. But it was all I could do to keep my mental shields up to prevent Jane from seeing Weston caging me against my desk with my mouth only a whisper away from his… and how much I liked being caged against my desk with my mouth only a whisper from Weston’s.
“I don’t like it,” Dick said, giving the dead computer one last whack.
“I can’t help that,” I told him. “Just like I can’t help that Weston seems to find himself in my company more than you would like. He’s free to roam wherever he likes, or so he says.”
“Jane, you’re her case supervisor. Can’t you give her some sort of order not to talk to people I don’t like?” Dick asked petulantly.
“Um, if I was the sort of control freak who gave case supervisors a bad name, yes,” Jane retorted. “Where is Weston now?”
“Ms. Jameson-Nightengale, would you care to explain why there’s a picture of you wearing a sparkly bikini on the computer in my temporary office?” Weston yelled from down the hall.
“I believe he is in his office,” I murmured.
Jane grumbled, “Shit.”
“Geeg, looks like one person didn’t turn off their computer!” Dick called down the hall. “You’re going to have to run the cleanup protocol all over again.”
“Got it!” Gigi yelled back.
Weston took out his notebook and scribbled something. I couldn’t read it from that distance, but I didn’t think it was something nice about the way Jane and Dick looked in Photoshopped body shots.
* * *
Later that night, I walked into my apartment and found a gorgeous man waiting for me in my kitchen, heating up my favorite type of blood.
“Oh, you are the best postmodern man-friend ever,” I told him, dropping my keys on the table.
“How was your day, dear?” he asked, slyly playing along as he slid a mug of blood across the counter. I climbed up on the counter, snagging the mug and wrapping my arms around his neck. I kissed him soundly, letting my legs curl around his hips. Beyond the usual gunmetal, he smelled of apple skins and light, delicate coriander—warm and spicy and deep. It was a scent that meant he was content and… anticipating something pleasant. I wanted to bury my face against his shirt and wallow in it.
“No, seriously, how was your day?” he asked as I sipped the blood.
“Oh, sorry, I thought we were being sexy and rhetorical,” I said before he gave me a quick peck on the lips.
Luke poured his own blood and we walked out onto my postage stamp of a balcony. He spotted a turquoise-and-white 1956 Ford roll by on the street. “Oh, are they starting?”
Luke lived in Deer Haven, a preplanned vampire-oriented gated community just outside of town. A contracted daylight concierge service delivered blood and necessities every afternoon, before the residents woke. All of the matching beige houses featured heavy security measures to protect their undead residents. It was also artificial and impersonal and gave me the willies every time I drove through the neighborhood. While he enjoyed views of carefully manicured lawns and the occasional deer, Luke was definitely missing out on the circulating parade of classic cars I got to see every Thursday night.
The Half-Moon Hollow Vampire Vintage Car Club gathered at the Coffee Spot, an old-fashioned diner famous for its cheese fries, though they gathered at midnight, after the diner closed, because vampires don’t eat cheese fries. After the requisite hour or so of admiring each other’s cars, the group cruised their refurbished rides on a circuit through town. Luke, a longtime car enthusiast who had sacrificed his precious Packard for the safety and convenience of an SUV, loved to watch the cars crawl by my apartment. He said it reminded him of home.
“I do enjoy a good Ford,” Luke mused, watching its taillights fade into the darkness. “I love that they do this, every week, like clockwork. There’s just a sort of wholesomeness to it, you know? Just driving for the pleasure of being out with your friends.”
I grinned at him. “See, you understand! You’re from a big city, and you don’t turn your nose up at the Hollow.”
“Well, yeah, it’s not that different from the little neighborhood where I grew up, which just happens to be part of a big city. Anyway, your night, how was it?”
“You don’t want to hear it,” I told him. “It was just confusing and exhausting, and involved an inordinate amount of disturbing Photoshop use.”
Luke sat back in his chair, his attention drawn away from the parading cars. “Really?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because whenever I ask you about your night, you’re always so positive. You’re full of these stories about some random interesting piece of paper that came across your desk or some new botanical combination you think could be the answer to vampires walking in sunlight. You never just say, ‘Meh, I don’t want to talk about it.’ I feel like I’m some unappreciated housewife serving you meat loaf while you think about your mistress.”
I burst out in cackles. “I’m sorry. You’re so much more important than my mistress.”
He shook his head. “Not funny.”
“Honestly,” I said, thinking back to the moment I’d shared with Weston in the archive. As open as my situation was with Luke, it certainly didn’t feel right to expound to my occasional sex partner how confused I was by a desk-related encounter with another man. “It’s not healthy, rehashing it over and over, even inside my head.”
He raised his hands. “OK, then. I’ll move on.”
I smiled. That was one of the things I loved about Luke. He didn’t push. He didn’t try to solve my problems for me. When I asked him to drop something, he dropped it.
“So how’s the shop? Do you need help boxing your online orders this week?”
“No, you’re a sweetheart to offer, but I’m almost done. Though that does remind me, I need to mix up some jasmine lavender green tea for when I drop the packages off with Miss Novalee.”
Novalee Lightner was the new local postmaster. I saw her at least once a week, dropping off packages for the shop. We’d had extensive conversations about her aches and pains from years of carrying a heavy post bag on her shoulder. Over the last few months, I’d been blending anti-inflammatory teas involving turmeric and ginger for her, which seemed to be helping.
“What is that going to do for her?”
“Nothing, she just really, really likes floral tea and she can’t find a good store-bought jasmine lavender blend… The ones from most commercial stores taste like sucking on air freshener.”
Luke smiled at me, tilting his head in an “aw” lean. “You’re a very
nice girl.”
I waggled my hand back and forth. “You’ll recall that the last time we had snow, Novalee bagged up my deliveries for home and the shop in plastic to prevent them from getting waterlogged. So I’m nice for somewhat selfish reasons. It’s just a good idea to befriend your local postmaster.”
“But only a nice girl would admit that she has sort of selfish motives. Admit it! You’re a nice girl!”
“OK! I’m a nice girl!” I exclaimed.
“Now, declare it to the fine people of Millard Street,” Luke prompted, sweeping his arm to the now-empty street.
“I’m a nice girl!” I cried, cupping my hands around my mouth.
It was exceedingly silly, but it made Luke laugh. And for a few moments, everything was right with my world. And then, of course, a fist pounded on my apartment door. I wondered for a second if it was going to be Weston, complaining about the noise from my balcony. But I figured if he was going to do that, he would probably just walk out on his balcony and fuss at me.
“Excuse me, the nice girl needs to go answer her door,” I said, handing Luke my mug.
“Use the peephole!” he called after me.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, glancing through the eyepiece to see a haggard middle-aged man standing in my hallway. I could hear his heartbeat on the other side of the door, so he was a haggard middle-aged human. So even if he was a little bigger than me, I was pretty sure I could take him.
I unlocked the door and opened it. “Can I help you?”
The man’s face was pale, and a fine sweat had popped up on his cheeks, reeking of cigarettes and maple syrup. The bags under his blue eyes could carry vacation clothes for a family of five. His nose was marked with a broken network of tiny purple capillaries. And his paunch was barely supported by a belt that practically creaked with strain. My gift tingled at the base of my skull, informing me of his myriad of health problems. There was no tea that would help this man. He needed several healthy nights’ sleep, a mineral-water-based detox, and to go back in time before he’d ever discovered the joys of a gas station burrito.
“My name is Stanley Bollinger,” he said. “I’m with Thoroughbred Private Investigations, out of Louisville. I’m looking for a young lady named Elizabeth Somerfield. I asked around and some people in town told me I could find someone fitting her description at this address.”
I pressed my lips together to prevent the angry hiss from escaping my mouth. It had been a very long time since I’d heard that name spoken in my direction. Years, in fact. So long that it didn’t surprise me that Mr. Bollinger had to resort to flashing what were sure to be extremely outdated pictures of me around town to try to find me. The Council only shared information about its constituents with the human authorities under very specific circumstances, like the genealogical database project. And in cases like mine? My information was kept under literal lock and key. And I didn’t appreciate Stanley Bollinger’s attempt to get through those security measures.
I could only think of two people who would have sent a private investigator after Elizabeth Somerfield—the same people who sent the birthday cards I trashed every year. The idea that they had suddenly stepped up their game and hired someone to seek me out was both infuriating and disorienting. Why would my parents suddenly decide they wanted to see me, almost twenty years after I’d been turned? Why was it suddenly so important? And how could I convince them to stop without actually deigning to speak to them? And how quickly could I get to the nearest gym and punch something without hurting anyone?
Still, it was not this poor man’s fault that he had been sent to find me. Shoving him over the second-story railing of my apartment building would be unfair and probably an overreaction on my part. So, in a carefully polite tone, I told him, “There is no one by that name living at this address.”
“Are you sure about that?” Bollinger asked. “Because you happen to look a lot like the photos I’ve seen of Elizabeth Somerfield.”
“Nope, sorry,” I said, shaking my head.
“Hey, is everything OK in here?” Luke asked, hovering near the balcony door.
Bollinger glanced toward Luke, then to me, and some resigned understanding seemed to creep across his face. He nodded slightly.
“It’s an amazing coincidence that I bear such a resemblance to this Elizabeth,” I told him, letting my fangs drop. While he flinched, he was careful not to step away from me and show the fear radiating through the redness in his eyes. Behind the bulk of his shoulders, I could see Weston topping the stairs. He paused, watching the interaction unfold between me and Bollinger, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“But as you can see, there are some key differences between her and me. So I’d appreciate it if you would just leave me alone and not come back here.”
Bollinger glanced at Luke again and nodded. “I understand. I’m sorry to bother you.”
Bollinger turned and lumbered toward the stairs. Weston practically jumped out of Bollinger’s way, his nose wrinkled. Apparently, he could smell the maple-syrup-based stench, too. Of course, Weston would probably hate breakfast foods, even if they were one of the best things about being human. Weston probably hated kittens and puppies and Christmas, too. Suddenly, my head filled with an image of Weston dressed as Ebenezer Scrooge, trudging down a snowy street in Half-Moon Hollow, swinging a cane at young children holding puppies and waffles.
A hysterical giggle escaped the iron grip I thought I had on my emotions. His head whipped toward me as Bollinger clattered down the metal stairs. All of the feelings I’d held in check for the sake of not doing violence to the syrup-scented interloper seemed to ripple across my brain at once. I was drowning in a sticky wave of fear and anger and hurt. For the first time in a long time, I thought I might actually cry. Weston stepped closer, concern painted across his face.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Not really,” I said, shaking my head. He opened his mouth to respond, but I shut the door before he could say another word.
6
Embracing the more peaceful side of yourself should not mean that you let people walk all over you. That leads to resentment, which leads to anger, which leads to difficult-to-remove bloodstains.
—Peace, Blood, and Understanding: A Living Guide for Vampires Embracing Pacifism
For all Weston’s grumbling about the lack of professionalism in our office, I was used to being treated with some measure of politeness at the Council building. So I was not prepared to be ambushed with condescension and vague threats on my way out of the archive.
I was “Peter Crowned.”
I will admit, I should have paid more attention. I was running a few minutes late for a book club meeting at Specialty Books and rushing. I’d almost made it past security when I turned the corner from the elevators and ran face-first into a wall of Italian silk. I was seized by the shoulders and pushed back none-too-gently. It was in that moment that I knew I’d messed up.
“Ms. Schwartz.” Mr. Crown was a tall, gaunt man with steely eyes and sharp features. He had all the warmth of an ice pick in the back. He smelled… wrong. Too honey-sweet for someone who was so damn sour, even if it was mixed with the juniper of brimming resentment. Mr. Crown was a man who was overflowing with bitterness and disappointment, and he was glaring down at me as if I were responsible for all of them.
“Excuse me, Mr. Crown,” I said, taking another step back into the nondescript gray Council interior. There was no one else in the hallway, no one else to vouch for me if Mr. Crown filed some sort of complaint against me. “I was in a rush and didn’t see you.”
“A lot of things around here seem to go unseen,” Mr. Crown replied, sneering at me. “I may not have much of a presence here in the office, but believe me, I have a thorough knowledge of all the ‘problem vampires’ in my district. You know, in my day, vampires like you were kept in special facilities, where they couldn’t cause any trouble. None of this soft-headed nonsense about letting you live alone in nonsanctioned ho
using or work with the public.”
I didn’t have to ask what he meant by “vampires like you.” He meant probationary cases. I took a deep breath and stared up into Mr. Crown’s cold gray eyes, refusing to let him make me lose my composure in the middle of the hallway at my workplace.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr. Crown,” I said quietly.
“What is it that modern parents call it these days? Free-range children? It’s criminal, what Mrs. Jameson-Nightengale lets you get away with. She gives you more than enough rope,” he seethed. “And one of these days, things are going to change, and you’re going to hang yourself.”
My fangs dropped, sending the taste of blood singing through my mouth. How dare he? He didn’t know me. He didn’t know how hard I’d worked to make a nice, normal life for myself. And here he was, basically telling me that he would see me incarcerated in some vampire nuthouse if he managed to get control of the district. I glared up at him through the veil of my lashes. My knuckles cracked, and I could feel my fingernails slicing little half-moons into the flesh of my palms.
“You’re going to need to get out of my way,” I said in a low, seething voice, adding, “Please.”
I had to stop. I had to get control of myself. I was about to do something terribly stupid, swinging at an official in a public hallway. Even though it would have felt really, really good, I would definitely suffer consequences for it. The loss of face alone would have Mr. Crown baying for my blood… unless I literally removed his face…
Too messy.
“Ms. Schwartz!” Weston’s voice echoed down the empty hallway. I turned to see him rushing toward me, looking concerned. “Ms. Schwartz, I was hoping to speak to you about filing procedures before you left for the night.”
“Not now, Mr. Weston. I’m speaking to her.” Mr. Crown sniffed.
Weston moved quickly until he was standing at my side. His hand rested lightly at the small of my back. I felt that wave of rage crest and then ebb as his scent crept into my senses. Logic seemed to nudge my fury back into the corner and had me relaxing my hands, unclenching my jaw. It wasn’t that I thought Weston would protect me, but that his being there was enough to ground me back to reality. All of those consequences for attacking came flooding into my head in a long list, with bolded bullet points.