I looked into my closet and sighed again. I’m not entirely certain how someone who lives in a climate as hot as I do has so much black in her closet. Norah’s laundry looks like a freaking rainbow, all pinks and blues and greens and patterns. Mine looks like an advertisement for cold-water Cheer. I pulled out a pair of jeans and a black tank top and threw them on.
I blew my hair dry even though I knew the heat would make it frizz within seconds of walking back outside. At least I’d know I’d made an effort even if no one else did. Or would notice. I loved teaching the Little Dragons karate class and they loved me. It had nothing, however, to do with my hair and everything to do with the fact that I can break a stack of eight two-by-fours with the side of my hand.
No wonder I can’t get a date.
Norah was out of the shower by the time I came out of my room. “You working today?” she asked.
“Same old same old.” I helped myself to another piece of her apple. “I’ve got some errands to run, then the dojo.”
“I might meet Tanya over at McClannigan’s in Old Sacramento tonight. Wanna join us?”
“Maybe.” It sounded fun. It sounded normal. It sounded like something I wouldn’t be able to do. One of the many, many problems with living life with feet in two different worlds is that I really don’t get to enjoy either one.
“I’ll call you and let you know the details.” She stuffed her lunch—another apple, some nuts and what looked suspiciously like a hunk of tofu with spices on it—into her bag. “Or are you just going to blow us off like you usually do?”
That stung a little. Unfortunately, it was also kind of deserved. I did back out of a lot of social engagements at the last minute. It’s not like I wanted to blow Norah off, but when a gremlin stops by with a package that has to make it to an elf before midnight, a girl simply has to do what a girl has to do. Or, more accurately, a Messenger has to do what a Messenger has to do, whether she wants to do it or not. “I’ll try not to.”
“That’s all I can ask, I guess.” Norah blew me an air kiss and left.
I slumped at the counter over my coffee, which had gone cold and bitter. There was no point hanging around the apartment. I mean, I liked it well enough, but I already felt restless. What was I going to do? Watch
Law & Order
reruns? I’m only twenty-six. Surely, it’s not time for that yet. Besides, if I got my errand for Alex done soon enough, I might get to the dojo in time to have lunch with Mae. That wouldn’t be all bad. At least I wouldn’t be alone.
I headed back to the Buick. It was all of ten thirty and I could already feel the promise of the heat that was to come for the day. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be a vampire. At least your skin stayed cool all day. Or so I’ve heard. I tried not to get close enough for them to touch me. Have I mentioned that they give me the heebie-jeebies?
My downstairs neighbor’s kid was sitting on the front stoop already. Ben was fifteen—at least that was what he was in people years. In how-to-get-into-trouble years, he might already be thirty. According to his mother, Valerie, he’d been turning his scene around. That’s how she put it, too. I occasionally wondered how old Valerie was in get-into-trouble years, but that seriously was none of my business.
I suppose Ben wasn’t my business either, but he was a charming kid in his own trouble-on-the-hoof way and I sort of related to him. In case you haven’t guessed, I don’t have a lot of friends. People find it hard to get close to me. Hell, I find it hard to get close to me. Anyway, I wasn’t the easiest teenager in the world back in the day. I knew a little about how he felt.
He was going above and beyond today. Despite the fact that the temperature would easily get into the high nineties, he had on black jeans, a black T-shirt, a black hoodie with the hood pulled up and big, thick black skate shoes. I’d be sweating like a pig in that outfit. He looked as cool as a cucumber, however. I suppose some people are specially suited to their own personal styles.
“’Sup?” Ben asked as I stepped around him. Our stoop is not exactly spacious. In fact, even calling it a stoop is probably being generous. It’s two concrete steps, a landing and two wrought iron railings. There are a couple pots of geraniums, courtesy of Valerie, and a window box arrangement of herbs because, as she told me while she was planting them this spring, adding a little natural beauty to her scene gave her some serenity. I suspect that Valerie may be a tiny bit more of a stoner than her kid, if only a less angsty one.
“Not much.” I sat down next to him. “You?”
“Nada.”
“Where’s your mom?”
“Work.”
“You got plans?”
He shook his head. “I’m gonna chill for a while, then who knows?”
“Wanna come to the dojo with me this afternoon? Help out with the little kids?”
He snorted and shook his head. “And be a role model? All that perseverance and indomitable spirit stuff gives me kind of a headache.”
“Suit yourself. The offer’s always open.” Like I said, I liked the kid, and I was still in that dress-in-black-and-be-a-loner stage myself. Plus, Valerie could use a break. The single-mom thing isn’t as glamorous as it looks on TV.
“Cool,” he said and leaned back on his elbows.
We both made fists and touched knuckles, and then I was on my way to Aldo’s.
THE FIRST TIME I WENT TO ALDO’S, I WAS SHOCKED. HIS PLACE so didn’t look how I expected a vampire’s house to look. I expected something, you know, gothic and creepy. A castle kind of thing surrounded by overgrown thickets. With bats. Possibly even some kind of vestigial moat.
But no, once again, another one of my bubbles had to be burst by painful reality. The head of the Sacramento Valley Seethe and representative to the Council lived in a ranch house on a quiet street with a well-tended lawn in front. It was an okay neighborhood tucked in between several not so nice ones. Once I thought about it, I could see how it was perfect. As long as Aldo kept his yard up, the neighbors didn’t care if they never saw him. In fact, they probably preferred to never see him. Aldo is not a pretty vampire. Plus, he had easy proximity to what passes as projects in Sacto with lots of young men and women likely to disappear without anyone commenting. It was like a vampire buffet practically. And so convenient!
Aldo’s place was unremarkable. In a way, that made it creepier than any Gothic monstrosity or spooky Victorian. Evil is right there living cheek by jowl with the rest of us. Most of the time it looks normal as hell. Although, be forewarned. A predator—and make no mistake, a vampire is a predator—is often at its most dangerous when it looks harmless. It’s the best disguise, and Aldo liked to keep it that way. I knew, from learning the hard way as always, that he didn’t like me to park in front of his place. The street was lined with minivans and SUVs in neutral grays, blacks and tans. Neighbors noticed young women in old turquoise Buicks who stopped by too often. Aldo preferred that I park a few blocks away and saunter past, dropping whatever it was I needed to deliver as inconspicuously as possible.
I was occasionally tempted to tell him to ram it, but I’d also decided it was wiser to choose which battles I wanted to fight at any given moment. Aldo had at least nominal control of all the vampires in the Sacramento Valley area. They were under strict orders not to suck my blood. I appreciated that. I mean, you’re not supposed to kill the Messenger, no matter what. That didn’t mean that no one had ever lost control and done it anyway. Mae told me about a very nice young man who had wound up sucked down into a sinkhole when some dwarves up in Gold Country had had enough of him. They got in a buttload of trouble for it, but that didn’t bring the kid back to life. It was nice to know there’d be some kind of retribution if someone came after me, but I’d just as soon only get in fights that I think I can win.
Plus, if I die, I’d like to know someone will suffer after I’m gone. I’m just that kind of little ray of sunshine.
So in order to avoid antagonizing Aldo, I parked Grandma’s Buick a few blocks over, near a 7-Eleven. The only reason it would be noticeable was that it was slightly cleaner than some of the other junk heaps parked nearby. Not as noticeable as the shiny black SUV parked in the one shade spot, though. I grabbed Alex’s envelope off the front seat and started the stroll over to Aldo’s, humming “Love Shack” to myself for reasons even I can’t quite explain.
The sun shone down on me, but it wasn’t too hot yet. Bees buzzed around the jasmine that had taken off like a weed through some of the yards. All in all, it didn’t suck. Certainly it wasn’t the worst assignment anyone had ever given me. I wondered if Alex would be grateful to me for making the delivery and began to speculate on ways I would want him to show that gratitude if only he weren’t a vampire. He is pretty hunkalicious. I’m not blind. I just don’t fish off the company pier, if you get my drift. It doesn’t seem wise. If Alex weren’t a vampire, though, and I weren’t a Messenger . . . well, that might be a completely different story. My mother would be ecstatic if I started dating a doctor. She’d be more ecstatic if I became a doctor, but she’d still be pretty freaking happy with a doctor-boyfriend.
I floated deep in that thought, tripping along the street on a lovely day.
That’s when the ninjas jumped me.
2
OKAY. MAYBE NINJAS IS OVERSTATING. THERE WERE NO THROWING stars or nunchakus. There was, however, a group of guys in black pajamas with their heads swathed in black scarves so their faces weren’t visible who seemed to materialize out of nowhere and proceeded to kick the crap out of me.
That may not seem like a great feat. I am merely one not terribly large girl. Five foot seven in my stocking feet and my weight is none of your damned business. I am also, however, a lot stronger, faster and more skilled than I look. It’s one of my charms. Fine. It may well be my only charm. That and very strong, white, even teeth. My mother insisted on excellent oral hygiene. Even trolls wouldn’t have stood a chance against her militant stand on flossing. Still, I can take out a goodly group of people without breaking too much of a sweat. These guys, however, had my number.
I totally did not have theirs.
I’d also had almost no warning. No strange buzzing feeling. No hairs standing up on my arms. There was maybe the tiniest moment of unease before the seven guys dropped out of the trees—yes, that’s what I said, dropped out of the trees—and started wailing on me.
One of them slammed on the point of my chin with his open palm while making these fast shoving motions with his hands, and I literally saw stars.
I looked around for a weapon. Something. Anything I could use to smack somebody or to shield myself with. There was nothing, not even a stick.
Another one spun around and kicked me in the kidneys, which I so did not appreciate. I use those things, you know?
I considered trying to kick one of them where it counts, but the truth is that most guys will protect that area fast and they know how to do it, too. They’ve been doing it since about third grade when the little girls realized that that was a weak point on all the little boys.
I backed away, trying to control the distance between them and me, but it’s hard to back away when there’s someone at your back.
It was at about that moment, however, that I dropped Alex’s manila envelope. One of the guys behind me swooped in and scooped it up. He held it aloft and then, just as quickly and as silently as they had seemingly dropped out of the sky and attacked me, the ninja dudes took off and I was left, empty-handed, staring after them with blood dripping from my bottom lip.
I hate it when that happens.
I WALKED SLOWLY BACK TO THE 7-ELEVEN AND THE BUICK. I could already feel the bruises forming. The ninja dudes had really done a job on me. I couldn’t figure out what kind of martial arts they were using either. I’m pretty good. I’ve been studying at Mae’s dojo since I was seven and managed to talk my mother into letting me try it.
Mae’s an awesome teacher, and I am now proficient in tae kwon do, jiujitsu, aikido and capoeira. I’m fairly good at judo, and don’t even try to take me in Chinese checkers. I’ll kick your ass from here to next Tuesday.
These guys, however, had me snowed. Well, not totally. I got in a few licks of my own. It just happened that they were getting in way more of their own licks and there were more of them. I have to admit. It scared me a little.
Their movements were familiar but not quite familiar enough. They were especially not familiar enough to let me anticipate what was coming next and therefore avoid it. Plus, did I mention the seven-against-one thing?
I went into the store and grabbed a Popsicle and a bag of frozen peas from the freezer section. I plopped them down on the counter in front of the clerk. He looked up from his sudoku and took in my face. “¿Qué pasa,
mamacita
?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” I told him, slapping a ten down on the counter next to my selections.
“You okay? You want me to call the cops?” he asked, ringing me up. His tone was nonchalant. His appraising look was not.
“I’m peachy,” I said. “No cops.”
Seriously, no cops. I avoided cops at all costs. If vampires gave me the heebie-jeebies, cops gave me
shpilkes
, and there’s nothing worse than a bad case of
shpilkes
when you’re sitting in a cell. Cells happen to be exactly where you end up when you deal with cops. Believe it or not, I have it on good authority that if you tell a cop that you were trying to deliver an envelope to one of the lamest vampires on the planet when a bunch of ninjas dropped out of the freaking trees and kicked the crap out of you, they don’t buy it. They think you’re nuts and not in a good way.
