Secret Vampire (23 page)

:You don't like werewolves?"

"They're great if you like double-digit IQs."

"But you let them in the dubs."

"Some dubs. Night People may not marry out of
their own kind, but they all mix:
lamia,
made vam
pires, werewolves, both kinds of witches ..."
Poppy, who had been playing at intertwining their
fingers in different ways, shifted curiously. "What's
both kinds of witches?"

"Oh
. . .
there's the kind that know about their
heritage and have been trained, and the kind that
don't. That second kind are what humans call psy
chics. Sometimes they just have latent powers, and
some of them aren't even psychic enough to
find
the
Night World, so they don't get in."

Poppy nodded. "Okay. Got it. But what if a human walks into one of those dubs?"

"Nobody would let them. The dubs aren't what
you'd
call
conspicuous, and they're always guarded."

"But if they
did
..."

James shrugged. His voice was suddenly bleak. "They'd be killed. Unless somebody wanted to pick
them up as a toy or pawn. That means a human
who's basically brainwashed-who lives with vam
pires but doesn't know it because of the mind control.
Sort of like a sleepwalker. I had a nanny once.
.."
His
voice trailed off, and Poppy could feel his distress.

"You can tell me about it later." She didn't want
him ever to be hurt again.

"M'm."
He sounded sleepy. Poppy settled herself
more comfortably against him.

It was amazing, considering her last experience
going to sleep, that she could even shut her eyes.

But she could. She was with her soulmate, so what
could go wrong? Nothing could hurt her here.

Phil was having trouble shutting his eyes.

Every time he did, he saw Poppy. Poppy asleep in
the casket, Poppy watching him with a hungry cat's
gaze. Poppy lifting her head from that guy's throat to
show a mouth stained as if she'd been eating berries.

She wasn't human anymore.

And just because he'd known all along that she
wouldn't be didn't make it any easier to accept.

He couldn't-he
couldn't--condone
jumping on people and tearing up their throats for dinner. And
he wasn't sure that it was any better to charm peo
ple and bite them and then hypnotize them to for
get it. The whole system was scary on some deep
level.

Maybe James had been right
humans just
couldn't deal with the idea that there was somebody
higher on the food chain. They'd lost touch with
their caveman ancestors, who knew what it was like
to be hunted. They thought all that primal stuff was
behind them.

Could Phillip tell them a thing or two.

The bottom line was that he couldn't accept, and
Poppy couldn't change. And the only thing that made
it bearable was that somehow he loved her anyway.

Poppy woke in the
dim,
curtained bedroom the next day to find the other half of the bed empty. She
wasn't alarmed, though. Instinctively she reached out
with her mind, and . . . there. James was in the kitchenette.

She felt
... energetic. Like a puppy straining to be
let loose in a field. But as soon as she walked into
the
living
room, she felt that her powers were weaker. And her eyes hurt. She squinted toward the painful brightness of a window.

"It's the sun," James said. "Inhibits all vampire
powers, remember?" He went over to the window
and dosed the curtains-they were the blackout type,
like the ones in the bedroom. The midafternoon sun
shine was cut off. "That should help a little-but
you'd better stay inside today until it gets dark. New
vampires are more sensitive."

Poppy caught something behind his words. "You're
going out?"

"I have to." He grimaced. "There's something I forgot my cousin Ash is supposed to show up this
week. I've got to get my parents to head him off."

"I didn't know you had a cousin."

He winced again. "I've got lots, actually. They're
back East in a safe town-a whole town that's con
trolled by the Night World. Most of them are okay,
but not Ash."

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's crazy. Also cold-blooded, ruthless-"

"You sound like Phil describing you."

"No, Ash is the real thing. The ultimate vampire.
He doesn't care about anybody but himself, and he
loves to make trouble."

Poppy was prepared to love all James's cousins for
his sake, but shad to agree that Ash sounded
dangerous.

"I wouldn't trust anyone to know about you just
now," James said, "and Ash is out of the question.

I'm going to tell my parents he can't come here,
that's all."

And then what do we do? Poppy thought. She couldn't stay hidden forever. She belonged to the
Night World-but the Night World wouldn't accept
her.

There had to be some solution-and she could only
hope that she and James would find it.

"Don't be gone too long," she said, and he kissed
her on the forehead, which was nice. As if it was
getting to be a habit.

When he was gone, she took a shower and put
on dean clothes. Good old Phil-he'd slipped in her
favorite jeans. Then she made herself putter around
the apartment, because she didn't want to sit and
think.
Nobody should have to think on the day after their own funeral.

The phone sat beside the square couch and mocked
her. She found herself resisting the impulse to pick
it up so often that her arm ached.

But who could she call? Nobody. Not even Phil,
because what if somebody overheard him? What if
her mother answered?

No, no, don't think about Mom, you idiot.

But it was too late. She was overwhelmed suddenly, by a desperate
need to
hear her mother's voice.
Just to hear a "hello." She knew she couldn't say
anything herself. She just needed to establish that
her mom still existed.

She punched the phone number in without giving
herself time to think. She counted rings. One, two,
three ...

"Hello?"

It was her mother's voice. And it was already over,
and it wasn't enough. Poppy sat trying to breathe, with tears running down her face. She hung there,
wringing the phone cord, listening to the faint buzz
on the other end. Like a prisoner in court waiting to hear her sentence.

"Hello? Hello." Her mother's voice was flat and
tired. Not acerbic. Prank phone calls were no big deal
when you'd just lost your daughter.

Then a click signaled disconnection.

Poppy clutched the earpiece to her chest and cried, rocking slightly. At last she put it back on the cradle.

Well, she wouldn't do
that
again. It was worse than
not being able to hear her mother at all. And it didn't
help her with reality, either. It gave her a dizzy Twi
light Zone feeling to think that her mom was at
home, and everybody was at home, and
Poppy
wasn't
there.
Life was going on in that house, but she wasn't
part of it anymore. She couldn't just walk in, any more than she could walk into some strange family's house.

You're really a glutton for punishment, aren't you? Why don't you stop thinking about this and
do
some
thing distracting?

She was snooping through James's file cabinet
when the apartment door opened.

Because she heard the metallic jingle of a key, she
assumed it was James. But then, even before she
turned, she knew it
wasn't
James. It wasn't James's mind.

She turned and saw a boy with ash blond hair.

He was very good looking, built about like James,
but a little taller, and maybe a year older. His hair
was longish. His face had a nice shape, clean-cut fea
tures, and wicked slightly tilted eyes.

But that wasn't why she was staring at him.

He gave her a flashing smile.

"I'm Ash," he said.
"Hi."

Poppy was still staring. "You were in my dream," she said.. "You said, 'Bad magic happens."' "So you're a psychic?"

"What?"

"Your dreams come true?"

"Not usually." Poppy suddenly got hold of herself.
"Listen, um, I don't know how you got in-"

He jingled a key ring at her. "Aunt Maddy gave
me these. James told you to keep me out, I bet."

Poppy decided that the best defense was a good
offense. "Now, why would he tell me that?" she said,
and folded her arms over her chest.

He gave her a wicked, laughing glance. His eyes
looked hazel in
this
light, almost golden. "I'm bad,"
he said simply.

Poppy tried to plaster a look of righteous disap
proval-like Phil's-on her face. It didn't work very
well. "Does James know you're here? Where is he?"

"I have no idea. Aunt Maddy gave me the keys
at lunch, and then she went out on some interior
decorating job. What did you dream about?"

poppy just shook her head. She was trying to
think.
presumably, James was wandering around in search of
his mother right now. Once he found her he'd find
out that Ash was over here, and then he'd come back
fast.
Which meant
...
well,
Poppy supposed it meant
she should keep Ash occupied until James arrived.

But how? She'd never really practiced being winsome and adorable with guys. And she was worried
about talking too much. She might give herself away
as a new vampire.

Oh, well. When in doubt, shut your eyes and jump right in.

"Know any good werewolf jokes?" she said.

He laughed. He had a nice laugh, and his eyes weren't hazel after all. They were gray, like James's.

"You haven't told me your name yet, little dreamer," he said.

"Poppy," Poppy said and immediately wished she
hadn't. What if Mrs. Rasmussen had mentioned that
one of James's little friends called Poppy had just
died? To conceal her nervousness, she got up to dose
the door.

"Good lamia
name," he said. "I don't like this
yuppy thing of taking on human names, do you?

I've got three sisters, and they all have regular old
fashioned names. Rowan, Kestrel, Jade. My dad would burst a blood vessel if one of them suddenly
wanted to call herself 'Susan.'
"

"Or 'Maddy?' "
Poppy asked, intrigued despite
herself.

"Huh? It's short for Madder."

Poppy wasn't sure what madder was. A plant,
she thought.

"Of course I'm not saying anything against James,"
Ash said, and it was perfectly dear from his voice
that he
was
saying something against James. "Things
are different for you guys in California. You have to mix more with humans; you have to be more careful.
So if
naming
yourself after vermin makes it easier
... "
He shrugged.