The Awesome (12 page)

The worst of my woe-be-gone epiphanies? I’d been a dink to my mom the night before my imminent death. I’d be forever immortalized as ‘that kid, the dink.’

A high-pitched squeal erupted from my lips, a sound similar to a whistling teakettle, and then I burst into tears. My giant Russian friend bounced me in her lap with quiet tuts, effectively ramming my forehead into her jiggling funbags. Too much more of it and she’d knock me out before we got to where we were going. I wasn’t so sure that was a terrible thing.

“Do not cry, malyshka. I am Lubov. This is Ahmed. No tears. It is as I said—a meeting. Nothing more.”

Tears became sniffles, sniffles became sobs, and I went slack in her arms, accepting her offered comfort. I hated her, of course, and was angry she’d taken me, but she sounded so earnest that I’d survive, I needed to believe she wasn’t all bad. If she was, that meant she was a liar, which in turn meant I’d be dead by nightfall. Well, dead by nightfall
if
I was lucky and they didn’t torture me first.

When Lubov the Kidnapper crooned in Russian, reciting a brownie recipe for all I knew, I went boneless and sniveled, lamenting my helplessness like a big, snotty pile of fail-hunter. She stroked my hair and I closed my eyes, wishing I hadn’t let my mother down by being stupid enough to get kidnapped.

CHAPTER TEN

A
N HOUR LATER,
the car rolled to a stop. Lubov had let her iron grip slacken—enough that I had some wiggle room, not enough to execute any grand escapes—but when the driver’s door thudded shut, it was back to my face getting planted in her mammaries.

“Put me down,” I growled. The sole remnant of earlier’s breakdown was the headache pounding behind my eyes. There was some satisfaction in knowing I may have been a big crybaby about things, but at least I’d gotten snoogers on one half of the kidnapping team.

“I will, but if you run, Ahmed will catch you and we will tie you until home time. Do not make this happen.” Before relinquishing her hold, she walked me inside a high rise building. I took note of the traffic sounds, the hustle and bustle of people coming and going around me—all of them oddly blind to the teenaged girl drowning to death in Russian sweater puppies—and I recognized Boston. Lubov carried me to the elevator, stepped inside, and Ahmed pushed the button to the appropriate floor. Halfway up, I was deposited back onto my bare feet. Lubov moved in front of the elevator controls so I wouldn’t do something spectacularly clever like pull the fire alarm or buzz the front desk and announce that I’d been forcibly removed from my home by a quasi-vampire streetwalker.

The elevator dinged at the forty-fourth floor. As soon as the door opened, I was pushed into an ultra-contemporary apartment suite complete with bubbled glass walls to my left and right, stainless steel overhead lights, and a Japanese-looking fountain drizzling water onto polished, ovular stones. It was industrial meets museum, too chic to feel homey, and I hunched down, feeling ragged and dirty in comparison to my surroundings.

I glared over my shoulder at Lubov, letting her know without words I didn’t appreciate having to go first. She was impervious, though, flashing me a smile wrought with crooked, yellow teeth. Bad though they may be, at least they were human looking. That put her above Prince Maxi Pad, or whatever the heck his name was.

Wave and water sounds spilled through the foyer. I eyeballed the fountain, wondering why it had gotten louder. Upon closer listen, I figured out the house was wired for surround sound, and that there were nature sounds playing, like those cheap CDs you could get from the dollar store. This wasn’t exactly the dirty warehouse murder scene I’d anticipated; it was far too clean and lacking blood. Where were the salivating vampires hanging from the rafters? Where were the mauled carcasses?

Why was that guy doing Pilates in the front room?

“Maxim, this is Maggie.”

Pilates man, or Pilates vampire to be more specific, stopped bending over backwards to peer at me. He wasn’t particularly tall, nor was he very old looking, though I knew that meant jack and squat as far as true age went. He had unremarkable brown eyes, less remarkable brown hair, and a lean, fit frame. He also wore a pale gray track suit and had bare feet that—I couldn’t help but notice—had seen a recent pedicure. The whites on his toenails were far too bright to be natural.

“It’s Max now, Lubov. Maggie, sit. Please.”

“... no thanks.”

“Please.
Sit
.”

There was an emphasis on the word that wasn’t harsh so much as emphatic. Normally, I’d go out of my way to tell him to shove it where the sun don’t shine, but before I could mouth off, my feet shuffled towards the couch and my butt planted itself down on a cushy seat. My body had betrayed me; my brain said to do one thing, the rest of me did another at his behest.

“Hey. Hey!”

He smiled, completely unrepentant that he’d made me his human puppet, and sat across from me, using a small white towel to dab at the back of his neck. Ahmed came to stand behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. Maxim’s fingers laced with his, and they shared a smile that could have melted butter.

“Ooooh. Oh, I get it.” I hoped they didn’t take that wrong, like I marveled that they were queer. I didn’t care that they were together any more than I cared that Tiny Tina and Allie were together. It was more that Ahmed had gone out of his way to ensure I hadn’t been hurt in my kitchen. He’d rolled so he’d take the brunt of fall impact in my stead because his boyfriend told him to. Maybe Lubov’s promises that I’d make it out of here alive were true. That’d be nice. I had important things left to do in my life, like sleep with Ian and watch that TLC reality show about pregnant teenagers huffing paint. Or was that teenagers who ate paste dating paint huffers? Whatever.

“We need to discuss the Plasma thing, Miss Maggie. I don’t want to make this more upsetting than it already has been, so please know I’m sorry I had you removed from your home. I simply didn’t see you or your mother coming along of your own accord. Neither of you are particularly friendly towards my kind, and it’s important we talk.” He motioned at Lubov. “Get the girl a drink, would you? She’s a guest.”

“I’m not thirsty.”

“Yes, you are.”

And then I was thirsty. Neat trick, that.

“Stop dicking around with my head. You can’t apologize one minute and play with my mind the next. That’s not cool.” I looked around the apartment, hoping to spot something wooden that’d make a suitable stake if things went bad. Well, worse. I had a snowball’s chance in Hell of topping him, but I wouldn’t sit there while he mashed my brain like a pile of Play-Doh. The problem was there didn’t seem to be a single suitable thing in the entire suite. It was all metal and glass. Even the kitchen cabinets were stainless steel, blending seamlessly with similarly fashioned appliances.

“I’m not using mind control. This was gleaning the obvious.” Maxim motioned at my feet. “For example, you worried about your appearance earlier, when you first came in. I sensed the insecurity. Just now, I sensed your thirst, which I can’t blame you for. After all, you only had... “ He cocked his head to the side. “Oh, Maggie. Yuck. Lucky Charms are a terrible breakfast.”

“Lucky Charms are awesome. Shut up.”

That’s it, Maggie. Defend your cereal choices ’til your dying breath. Possibly literally. Focus, you boob.

He tittered, and I knew he’d skimmed my surface thoughts. “You’re going home as whole as the day you came into this world. Please stop thinking otherwise. And, yes, I have some power of suggestion, but my talents are more in sensing than directing. I’m harmless in comparison to other vampires.”

I kinda doubted the harmless thing considering he was a prince, but I wasn’t brave enough to tell him he was so full of crap it leaked from his ears. Lubov cracked a can of Coke in front of me and poured it into a funky, multicolored glass that looked like it came from Wonderland. The bottom was clear and see-through like normal, but along the top it was rainbow colors and wavy warps. As the soda snapped and fizzed, I realized how badly I wanted it. I hadn’t had any juice earlier, nor had I guzzled the milk from my bowl—Lubov and Ahmed had interrupted a sacred breakfast ritual of ‘consume mountains of cereal, relish sugary, diabetic-shock-inducing moo juice.’ Max sensed a thirst I hadn’t gotten around to acknowledging because I’d been distracted by the whole kidnapping thing.

I guzzled the Coke, telling myself it was okay because Lubov had opened the can right in front of me, it hadn’t been tampered with or there’d be no bubbles, and I’d seen the roofie-free bottom of the glass. It tasted fine, like Coke ought to taste anyway. I could remain fairly confident I hadn’t poisoned myself with a glass of carbonated Mister Clean.

“So what do you want?” I asked when half the glass was gone.

“Let me say this first: I understand why your mother did what she did. My fledgling was stupid and returned for a second taste, and her handler was stupider still for letting her go. However, I think parking a pure girl such as yourself near Plasma invited trouble.” He paused to cast me a sly look, and I saw Ahmed’s smile ratchet up a notch. Great. Vampire and vampire’s boyfriend both thought a seventeen-year-old virgin was ridiculous, too. I might as well wear a FAILED THE SEX badge on my forehead. “Irregardless, she was wrong to attack you.”

He looked like he expected me to say something to that. The best I could muster was, “It’s regardless. The I-R is redundant.”

Yeah. I showed him.

“You’re such an odd creature.” His smile told me that wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, I’d have almost said Max-the-Pilates-Vampire
liked
me, which was weird to think about. “But, yes, I’m sorry for what happened. Truly. The problem is this whole thing has gone...” He paused, shrugged, and then smirked. “Wonky. I didn’t want a progeny to start with. They’re high maintenance, but I accepted one as a condition of peace between myself and the prince immediately to my west. Lizzie is—well, was—a living descendent of his line. When he found out that she’d been killed, he demanded to know by whom, and the terms and conditions of our peace agreement were nullified.” He watched me sip my Coke for a long moment. “If I may ask, how long has your mother been hunting in Massachusetts?”

“Her whole life.”

“And she’s what? Thirty-six?”

I nodded.

“So young for such a sordid reputation. The problem is, Miss Maggie, it’s been a very industrious thirty-six years. She’s killed a lot of my kind—everyone knows someone she’s exterminated.” He folded his hands together, elbows balanced on his splayed knees. His smile remained bland, but there was something else to it, something
knowing
that put me on edge. I fidgeted in my seat, wondering what I missed, why Mom’s job—which had never been a secret in the first place—was a factor here.

“So glad you asked,” Maxim said. I tapped my temple and scowled, he ignored me to keep talking. “I’m keeping the details of Lizzie’s death quiet while I arrange a new peace agreement. If Matthew discovered the particulars of her demise, it’d cost me and arm and a leg in restitution. In the meanwhile, though, because he’s an impatient ass, he’s put a bounty on the killer. I sincerely doubt your mother’s government status would deter some of his brood, especially the ones who’ve lost loved ones or friends in the past.”

He splayed his hands and peered at me, allowing me to compute. When it sunk in, I felt sick. Prince Matthew had effectively sicced every vampire, werewolf, witch, and spookier-than-thou thing in his domain on my mother. The only thing stopping them from splattering her within the next day or two, and me by extension, was this prince’s silence about who was responsible.

I collapsed into the couch. Within the next few days, Mom would file paperwork on the Plasma incident. For all that she had the jurisdiction to nuke monsters when they broke the law, she had to create a paper trail so it didn’t look like an arbitrary slaying. There were
some
laws in place to protect the oogedy boogedies. The problem was if she did that, the files went public. She’d be advertising that she was guilty to everyone wanting a piece of Matthew’s promised pie. It was like tying a pork chop around her neck and walking into a den of starving wolves.

“Precisely,” Max said.

“... she can’t... she has to... “

“Yes.”

“I need to tell her... damn it.” I put down my glass of Coke and stood, no longer compelled to sit, my eyes swinging to the door. I wanted to run home and tell her as soon as possible. We may have argued last night, but there’s no way it’d hold up against this. Priorities and all that crap. My hands braced on the back of the couch, fingers squishing into the leather cushion. “I’ll tell her to keep it quiet. I’ll tell her about it and... “

“It’s not so simple. I wish it was, but the fact is if she finds out I removed you from your home, she’ll come after me for kidnapping. You know it, so do I. And if she comes in guns blazing, I have to defend myself and my interests.” That impassive smile returned despite his veiled threat. He stood, stretching his arms over his head to do some funky-looking yoga maneuver. When he spoke again, I couldn’t see his face because he was bent in half. Secretly, I hoped he lost his balance and ended up with his head wedged up his ass.