Night of the Living Dandelion (5 page)

“Vlad
is
a vampire, Aunt Abby. Why else would he go out only after dark, eat bloody meat, and sleep in a casket ?”

“How do you know what kind of meat he eats?”

“Crystal’s mom saw Vlad eating raw steak at a restaurant,” Tara replied.

“And Vlad has fangs, too,” Jamie said. “My aunt saw them up close. She visits Down the Hatch every evening now to watch him.”

“Don’t listen to those rumors,” I said, going back to my arrangement. “Vlad goes outside during the day, and his eyeteeth may be a little longer than the rest, but they’re not fangs. Your mom probably saw him eating steak carpaccio, which is served raw. As for sleeping in a casket, that’s just silly.”

“Have you
seen
Vlad outside during the day?” Tara asked.

“Yes, I did,” I said. “He came down to Bloomers on Monday to order houseplants.”

“What time?” Tara challenged.

“A little before five o’clock.”

“That’s dusk,” Jamie said, shredding a leaf with her fingers. “That counts as nighttime.”

“What kind of plants did he buy?” Tara asked.

As if I’d tell her now. “What is this? An inquisition? You shouldn’t spread these rumors, girls. They’re hurtful.”

“We’re not the ones spreading them,” Tara said. “We’re trying to undo the damage. Jamie, show her the other site.”

Jamie typed in the URL and at once the background on her screen turned black, with a border down each side made of silver stakes, silver bullets, and silver knives tipped with red. Across the top, in red letters that resembled dripping blood, was the name: HOW TO KILL A VAMPIRE, with the Web site URL
www.howtokillavampire.com
.

If that wasn’t alarming enough, in the middle of the page was a sketch of a man who looked like Vlad. Beneath the sketch was the heading HOW TO RECOGNIZE A VAMPIRE. Under it was a list of vampire lore with check marks next to each item that allegedly matched up to Vlad.

On the right was the image of a tombstone on which had been printed RIP, with a link that said CLICK HERE. The link led to a page that listed various ways to get rid of vampires, such as the traditional stake through the heart or a silver bullet. From there they became even more gruesome.

My stomach lurched. It was a Web site devoted to murdering Vlad.

“W
hose Web site is that?” I asked Tara.

“Not mine! Don’t get angry at
me
, Aunt Abby. I’m only the messenger.”

“I’m not angry. I just want to know who put up that trash.”

Jamie was searching the site but finally shook her head. “There’s no contact info.”

I grabbed a pen and tablet from my desk and wrote down the URL. “I’ll have Marco find out. He’ll know who to contact about having it taken down before it inspires someone to hurt Vlad. In the meantime, maybe you can spread good things about Vlad, such as that he was an Army Ranger, and was the head of a Chicago hospital’s blood lab . . . On second thought, scratch that last one. Let’s not add more fuel to the fire.”

 

“This goes way beyond spreading rumors,” I told Marco, as he looked over the HOW TO KILL A VAMPIRE Web site. “Someone has it in for Vlad.”

Marco had his chin propped on his hand as he viewed the page. He was seated at the sleek black and chrome desk in his office at Down the Hatch. I sat across from him in one of the two leather sling-back chairs, with the Evil Ones on the floor by my feet. I’d insisted that Marco take a look at the site before we ate supper.

Decorated in modern shades of gray, black, and silver, Marco’s office is in sharp contrast to the bar, which still has the olive green, burnt orange, and dark wood that the original owner installed in the sixties. I’ve been pushing Marco to redecorate—he’s owned the bar for nearly a year—but the customers are so used to it that Marco fears they’ll revolt if he changes anything.

“This is the work of a coward,” he commented, studying the Web page, “someone who fears Vlad but doesn’t have the courage to face him. It was obviously done to instill fear. I’ll contact the service provider for this site and see if I can get it taken down.”

“You don’t seem too concerned.”

“The Internet is full of trash like this.”

“It doesn’t help that Vlad fits the part. Can you talk to him about wearing a pair of jeans and a Down the Hatch T-shirt instead of dressing like he’s going to a funeral?”

“That’s who he is, Abby. Vlad has always dressed differently. In fact, after we’d been in the military for a while, he started wearing his Goth-style clothes when he was off the base, and was immediately called down for it. I felt that was wrong and went to bat for him. So I can’t very well tell him not to wear them now. Besides, he’s in compliance with my dress code.”

What dress code—shirts and shoes?

Marco shut off his computer and came around the desk to help me out of the chair and onto the crutches. “I’m not going to waste these next few weeks worrying about Vlad’s choice of clothing or some idiot’s Web site when I’d much rather think about you.”

He put his arms around me and kissed me, causing me to totter on the crutches until he steadied me. “You don’t have much of a sense of balance, do you?”

I shrugged. My crummy sense of balance was why I’d never thought about modeling—well, that and the fact that I’m half a person too short. “You know what else we should think about?” I pulled out the chain I wore beneath my blouse to dangle my engagement ring in front of him. “Our wedding plans.”

He locked his hands behind my waist, keeping our bodies together, and said in a sexy voice, “What are we planning?”

“Nothing yet. That’s the problem. Once we announce that we’re officially engaged, our families will want to know the details, like when, where, and how, and the only thing we can tell them is who.”

“That’s the only detail that matters to me,” Marco said, rubbing his nose against mine.

“So,” I said, catching his romantic mood, “are we talking about eloping?”

Marco pulled back to give me a quizzical glance. “Eloping? Why? Do you want to elope?”

“I actually hadn’t thought about it until now. Do
you
want to elope?”

“I hadn’t thought about it either, but maybe we should think about it. Imagine the money we’d save.”

“And the parents we’d hurt.”

“Let’s hold this discussion later. I’m hungry.”

So was I, but not for food. “We could get something to go,” I said, giving him a flirtatious glance, “if you can slip away from the bar for an hour.”

His mouth curved up at one corner, and this time he pulled me against him so I couldn’t fall. “I can make that happen,” he murmured, his lips against mine. Then he gave me a long, hot kiss to whet my appetite. As if it needed more whetting.

We waited for our food in “our” booth, the last one in the row opposite the bar, where we watched the five thirty newscast on the closest TV. I noticed Vlad performing a glass trick for a bevy of women, some seated on stools, others standing three-deep in places, while the men who’d been crowded out sat in booths grumbling and glaring.

I studied the men, wondering if one of them was the culprit who’d put up the Web page. “You know,” I said to Marco, “you might want to suggest to Vlad that he shouldn’t play to the ladies so much. He’s not making any friends among the guys.”

Marco turned to glance at the men in question, but their attention had suddenly shifted to the televisions mounted on each end of the bar, where crawling text at the bottom of the screens read: PARKVIEW HOSPITAL DIRECTOR OF NURSING LORI WILLIS REPORTED MISSING WEDNESDAY. ATTEMPTS TO REACH WILLIS AT HOME UNSUCCESSFUL. POLICE ARE SEARCHING FOR HER 2007 GREEN HYUNDAI AND SEEKING INFORMATION FROM ANYONE WHO SAW WILLIS AFTER 5 P.M. TUESDAY.

“Hey, Vlad,” one of the guys called, “wasn’t that Willis woman one of your admirers?”

Vlad grinned but didn’t respond.

Another called, “Didn’t we see her here Tuesday night slipping you her phone number?”

Still with a smile on his face, Vlad merely shook his head and went about his business.

Then a guy called, “What did you do with her, Vlad? Tuck her in the meat locker for a midnight snack?” He followed it with sucking sounds.

Several women turned to glare at him, but that only made the others join in.

“Hey, guys, cool it,” Kyle, the EMT, called from his booth.

“Shove it, Kyle,” one of the hecklers said. “You can’t stand the dude either.”

“Calm down, guys,” the mailman said, rising. “This is a friendly bar.”

“Those jerks are just jealous, Vlad,” one of the women said loud enough for them to hear.

That caused more grumbling among the men.

“I’ll be right back,” Marco said quietly, then slid out of the booth and walked calmly through the crowd of women to join Vlad and the other bartender behind the bar. He made eye contact with several of the loudmouths, as though reminding them who the alpha male was. The room grew quiet, then after a few minutes, conversation began again without further heckling.

Marco had a quick word with his buddy, filled two glasses with draft beer, and returned to our booth.

“What did you say to Vlad?” I asked.

“To cool it with the women until the guys get to know him better. There’s some kind of turf war in progress right now.”

“It doesn’t help that the women are practically drooling over him.” Not that I could fault them for it. There was simply something tantalizing about Vlad Serban.

Marco kept an eye on the crowd from our booth. “I hate to do this, Sunshine, but I’d better stick around here this evening.”

Although I understood Marco’s decision, the thought of going home alone saddened me. I feared I’d be doing that soon enough. “I’ll stay, too.”

“I’m sorry to ruin our plans,” Marco said, reaching for my hand.

Forcing myself to appear cheerful, I said, “You didn’t ruin anything. As long as we’re together, I’m happy.”

He turned my hands over and traced the lines in my palms with his thumbs, then raised his eyes to mine and studied my face with such wistfulness that I knew immediately he was thinking about our parting.

Gert, the waitress who’d been at Down the Hatch since the sixties decor was new, chose that moment to deliver our pulled pork sandwiches and sweet potato fries in two big takeout containers. “Here you go, lovebirds,” she said in her gravelly voice.

“Thanks, Gert,” Marco said. “We’ve decided to eat here.”

“Good idea,” Gert said quietly. “We’ve got some restless males in the room tonight.”

As I unpacked the food, Marco’s younger brother Rafe made his way past the people at the bar and slid onto the bench beside me. Without so much as a hello, he put his chin in his hands and sighed with such misery that I halfway expected him to burst into tears.

Great. Another long face. If we kept it up, we’d drive the customers away.

Rafe reached for one of my fries, chewed and swallowed, then sighed again. When he reached for another, I asked, “Want to order some food?”

He sighed again. “No, thanks. I don’t have an appetite.” Then he took another fry.

Raphael Salvare was the youngest of Marco’s siblings, and at the age of twenty-one, looked like a lankier version of his thirty-one-year-old brother. And while he had inherited the handsome Salvare looks, he didn’t seem to have his brother’s drive or common sense.

Rafe had quit college a semester before graduating, then lazed around his mother’s house in Ohio, claiming he needed to find himself. After a few months of watching Rafe search for himself via cable TV, Mrs. Salvare, a widow, had driven him to New Chapel and handed him over to Marco to be molded into a responsible human being. Or so her theory went.

As one would imagine, Marco was ever so grateful. He’d put Rafe to work doing basic janitorial work, hoping his little brother would grow tired of it and go back to school. Instead, Rafe had taken a job in a nearby city working as a bartender trainee at Hooters. There he’d met the girl of his high school fantasies, Cinnamon Howard, and had impetuously proposed.

Marco’s mother had nearly killed Rafe when she learned that Cinnamon was only nineteen. On top of that, Cinnamon’s father had insisted the wedding reception be held at his gentlemen’s club, which had turned out to be a sleazy strip joint. In the end, Mrs. Salvare had been spared the agony of the ill-suited marriage when Cinnamon’s parents called it off, claiming that the Salvares weren’t up to their standards. Rafe had been left with a broken heart.

Now he slumped against the back of the booth, looking bereft and friendless.

“Rafe, you can’t go on this way,” I said. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

“I am sick—sick at heart. Every time I walk into Hooters, I expect to see Cinnamon.”

“Doesn’t she work there anymore?” I asked.

“Her mom made her quit. Now whenever a girl with red hair walks in, my heart pounds so hard I want to puke.”