Min's Vampire (13 page)

There were fresh clothes on the foot of
the bed. And they were hers. He’d dashed back to her place and
raided her wardrobe. Not that she wanted to put those clothes back
on. She took them and tossed them in the trash. They reeked of dark
magick, and of whatever it was that made the fae’s scent so
distinctive. But it bugged her that he could so easily come and go
from her home. She’d have to rescind his invitation when they got
back to her place. She was almost certain that she
should.

Yet Luca surprised her, having called a
taxicab, and paying the driver—and not using even one of his
preternatural powers—to drive them both back to her house. He let
her decide she needed to hold onto his arm as she climbed the front
steps up to the porch, but once they were in the house he scooped
her dizzy form up into his arms and without so much as jarring her,
took her upstairs to her room. She noticed that he’d closed the
door to her mother’s room once again, as if it all hadn’t
happened.

But it had, and no matter how long she
lived Min would forever have the sight of her mother’s body
possessed by that evil, dark force, burned into her
memory.

She let him undress her, ever so
gently, as he redressed her in a Betty Boop nightshirt that was her
favorite. How he knew, she could only wonder. But it was her
favorite because it was worn and comfortable—and as far from sexy
as bed clothes could get. Another point, if not a creepy one, for
the vampire’s scorecard.

Luca made to lay with her in the bed,
but she put her hand against his chest. His expression turned hurt,
but that look vanished almost instantly. Min smiled. “Your clothes
reek of that faerie magick.”

His mouth made a perfect O.

“
So take them
off.”

He shed his shirt and pants
in no time at all, looking so very graceful and beautiful as he did
so.
Far more beautiful and graceful than I
will ever look doing such a thing.

He slid into bed with her, and to his
credit, wasn’t even aroused. He just seemed to know that she needed
the feel, the touch of his flesh against hers…just not sex. She
needed to be held and comforted, and without another word Luca did
exactly that.

Maybe being psychically
connected to my vampire lover isn’t the worst thing on
earth
, Min thought right before she passed
into a blessedly dreamless sleep.

Chapter 14

Min was only asleep less than an hour
when her sister, Andy, burst into her bedroom, flinging open the
drapes and brandishing a danish and black coffee. “Get out,” Min
said.

She was lying on the side of her head
where the contusion was and probably some nasty bruises by then.
She could feel more bruises and scrapes on her back and hip. And
her arm was sore as hell, too.

“
Not a chance!” Andy
growled, straightening her glasses and trying to pull a loose wave
of auburn curls back into the twist she’d tried to impose on her
feral tresses. “You’re not sticking me with this.”

“
With what?” Min looked up,
thoroughly confused and still in the heavy fog of both sleep
deprivation and being pulled out of said insufficient
sleep.

“
The Winter
Solstice…
remember
?”
Andy had her hands on her hips, drumming her fingers with
agitation. “It’s in two days and the sale we advertised in
The Witch’s Cauldron
starts today.”

“
Damn…by the pestilent
gods…” Min buried her face further into the pillow. “I know, I
know.”

“
Plus, there’s a freaking
Renaissance Fair slash Sci-Fi convention just two blocks over at
the Avery Center.”

Min looked up at her sister with fear.
“You’re kidding.”

Andy glared at her with haughty
exasperation, her dark blue suit jacket matching her eyes exactly.
“Wish to blazes I was.”

“
How did we miss
that?”

“
It was supposed to be all
the way across town at the Capital Pavilion. But a last minute
structural instability forced them to relocate.”

“
Structural instability?”
Min asked.

“
Yeah, a freaking Humvee
fell through the third floor to the second when they were setting
up the Auto Show two weeks ago.”

Min pressed her face into the pillow
again and groaned. She did remember seeing that in the paper. She
just hadn’t put two and two together…not with everything that was
happening with her mother…and Luca. “That’s what you get for having
goblins perform the wards and blessings.”

“
Might as well just offer up
a fresh corpse to a pack of ghouls and then hand
them
hammers and hard
hats,” Andy agreed.

Min smiled. Yes, they so
could’ve done a better job. But she, as her mother and
her
mother before, had
tried very hard to not attract too much attention to the family, or
to magick as a whole. And though city governments didn’t advertise
that they knew anything about the occult, the use of mystical
forces for their benefit was common practice.

Min cringed when she let her mind drift
back to the Winter Solstice Sale. Not only did they have real
practitioners of the craft coming—a long-standing event since the
store had been established nearly fifty years ago—but they’d be
besieged by Trekkies, wanna-blessed-bes, and the Dungeons and
Dragons crowd.

It would be worse than Valentine’s
week. All those desperate unrequited human train wrecks wanting
love potions before the big day, and then all those jilted, ticking
time bombs looking for some magical vengeance afterward. The love
potions were harmless. They actually had an herb in them that
caused calmness. And unless the person had some actual
preternatural ability, the voodoo dolls were just rag dolls
too.

But Min and Andy always tried to read
the customer’s aura first before selling the dolls. And the dark
texts were secure behind the magick curtain. But as a sort of
backup plan, they put a moratorium on their sale until two weeks
after the big day. Better safe than…well, having hexed and cursed
people running around with chaos and havoc strapped to their
backs.

As Min pulled her stiff and sleep
deprived body out of her nice warm bed, she groaned and cursed
louder than she would have liked. That’s when Andy’s face
dropped.

“
Oh my freaking god! What
the hell happened to you?”

Min had been so distracted by the
Sci-Fi convention bad news that she’d forgotten that she had a
bandage on her head. “Um…it’s just a scratch, really.”

Andy looked pale, staring at her sister
with horror. She gulped. “There’s blood seeping through the…the
bandage...” She was pointing at her own head and looking paler by
the moment. “And all those b-b-bruises.”

Min saw she was trembling and looking
woozy, so she got up and ushered her little sister into a chair
before she fell down or passed out. Andy wouldn’t take her eyes off
her sister’s forehead. Min snapped her fingers to try to get her to
stop, to look her in the eye, but she had eyes only for the damage.
When Min stood up straight again, the room spun—but just the
once—so she trudged over to her vanity table and took a look at
herself in the mirror.

Yee gads…and holy
hell!!!

She looked like she’d been in a car
wreck. The bandage at her temple had soaked through with blood, but
it was dried. When she gently pulled it off she saw the wound was
sealed with a decent scab. She would just have to shower and forgo
washing her hair. She’d pull it back in a bun, or a ponytail, or
have Andy braid it. She saw there were bruises down the side of her
neck, and down her sore arm. She’d have to wear a turtleneck to
cover that, and go heavy on the concealer to cover what was on her
face.

Andy shot up out of the chair, her face
florid with rage. “Who is he?” she barked, coming toward
Min.

“
Who’s who?” Min felt
confusion mix with the dizziness and nausea.

“
The guy. The guy from last
week. He’s the one that did this to you, isn’t he?”

Dear goddess, she thinks it
was a man…

“
Andy, honey, it’s
not—”

“
I’ll kill that fucking son
of a bitch!”

Min was shocked. Her sister never
cursed. She was also as violent as Minnie Mouse. But the look in
her sister’s eyes was scary. There was murder there, and a sudden
dark intelligence. She may not be much of a practitioner of the
craft, and casting had never seemed very important to her, but she
was still Katarina’s daughter, and she knew more than her share of
potent magicks.

Also, those dark blue eyes of hers were
lightening, turning an eerie, icy blue.

“
Andy, sweetie, calm
down.”

“
Are you going to tell me
where Mr. Goodbar is hiding his coward’s ass, or do I have to
scribe for him?”

“
Whoa! Stop! No man did this
to me…okay?”

Confusion flickered over Andy’s face,
breaking up the anger that was so horrifying to see there. “Then
what did?”

Min took a long, deep breath and held
it. She hadn’t wanted to tell her sister any of it. How she thought
she would be able to keep it from her she didn’t know, but she felt
such a compulsion to keep Andy safe, she almost tried to tell her a
lie anyhow. But just looking into those naïve eyes of hers, she
just couldn’t do it.

“
I tried to…to cure mom last
night.”

Andy’s face turned questioning, and
then her big blue eyes got round as saucers and she turned her head
toward the door. Min could tell she was looking for their mother,
and it broke her heart to see such desperation in Andy’s eyes.
Those eyes had welled up with tears, but Andy choked them back,
blinking them away, and turned from the door. “It didn’t work.” It
wasn’t a question.

“
You’re killing me, kid,”
Min said, now beside her sister, gently putting her hands on the
other woman’s shoulders.

Andy shrugged away her touch and paced
over toward the window. “I’m not a kid! And why the hell didn’t you
tell me you were doing this?”

“
It was
dangerous”—
obviously, look again upon my
face
—“and you’re—”

“
Not powerful enough? Not
tough enough? Right?”

Min tried to say something to comfort
her, but Andy started talking again…well, it was more like
yelling.

“
Don’t want to get stupid
little Andy all upset, she might cry all over herself!”

“
It’s not like
that.”

“
Really?” Andy said
accusingly. “Mom always said that.”

“
She did not.” Or at least
Min hoped she never had. But there was a nagging little doubt in
her mind.

“
No, she’d never have said
that,” Andy conceded. “But she
did
it anyways. Did you ever think that’s why I don’t
have the power you two have? Maybe if you two would stop protecting
me I wouldn’t be so useless to you.”

“
You’re not
useless…you—”

“
I help run the shop, and
I’m really gangbusters at tracking down old books for you.” She
turned and stalked to the bedroom door. “Yeah, I’m
freaking indispensible
.”

Min couldn’t say anything to that.
Katarina and she were both guilty of being powerfully
overprotective of Andy. And yes, that overprotectiveness had
stunted her metaphysical growth. It was all true.

Andy stopped at the door, her fingers
gripping the blue glass knob. “I could’ve helped you last
night.”

“
Look at me. It didn’t go
well.”

“
But if I were
there—”

“
If you were there you
would’ve—” Min stopped. She was about to say something very, very
stupid. But it was too late.

“
I would’ve gotten us both
killed.” Andy just stared at where her hand gripped the doorknob.
“That’s what you were about to say.”

Min sat back down on the bed, so tired,
so hurt, and now feeling so very guilty. “You’re right.”

A few beats of silence spread out
between them, and Andy took a few shallow breaths. “I’m not up to
momentous mystical battles. But if you two had ever let me try the
hard stuff, then maybe I wouldn’t be the liability I
am.”

Min wanted to be able to say something
to make it better, but there wasn’t anything to say. Andy was
right, but she didn’t regret that she’d kept her safe all this
time, she just didn’t.

“
Go shower,” Andy said as
she walked out of Min’s bedroom. “I’ll do your makeup when you’re
dressed. I can—you’ll look like a freaking drag queen if you do it.
Hells bells, you still use liquid concealer!” And she was
gone.

Min sat on her bed, closing her eyes on
her own horrific reflection in the vanity mirror. Why did hurting
Andy feel worse than any of her bruises?

After the shower Min managed to get her
pain-riddled arm into a turtleneck sweater. Andy came in with her
brushes and little jars of mineral makeup. But first some Neosporin
and a small flesh-colored band-aid, then she made quick work of
brushing and then braiding her sister’s frizzy rat’s nest of hair
until it was a nice loose style that accented her cheekbones and
made her eyes look impossibly big.