The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires (29 page)

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” I asked, double-lacing my boots as we prepared for our outing.

He seemed insulted by the question. “I am stronger every day.”

I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t flex his arms to prove his point. (Don’t judge me. I like arms.) He was getting stronger, strong enough to leave the nest, so to speak. My time with him was coming to a close. I could feeling it slipping away like a clock winding down. I cleared my throat, eyeing his battered motorcycle boots, which would be pretty damn uncomfortable after a few miles. “I’m just saying, you don’t seem like the outdoorsy type. Do you even ride a motorcycle?”

“A few of them over time. There happens to be a motorcycle in my garage at this very moment,” he retorted. “And I slept outdoors for almost ten consecutive years.”

“I know you hate when I point this out, but that was a while ago.”

“You know you two sound like the Bickersons, right?” Gigi giggled, bounding down the stairs and settling between us on the couch.

“When does the movie start?” I asked.

“Seven-thirty,” Gigi said. “Ben’s meeting me there. He’s got baseball practice. I will be home by ten-thirty, unless we stop for ice cream. And if we do, I’ll call you.”

“Good girl,” I said.

Cal cleared his throat. “And do you have the, er, item I gave you?”

I arched a brow at Gigi, who gleefully reached into her purse. “Cal got me Mace!”

“Aw!” I grinned at him. “That was thoughtful of you.”

“And a Taser!” Gigi exclaimed, whipping the pocketsized device out of her handbag.

“Are you insane?” I cried at my vampire, who was making “cut it out” gestures toward Gigi behind my back. “Why not just get her an Uzi?”

“Because Uzis don’t come in pink!” Gigi added, pulling the candy-colored stun gun out of its holster. She fired it up, giggling as an arc of light jumped between the two metal probes.

I shot an incredulous look at Cal. “How did you even get that?”

“Internet,” Cal mumbled. “I just want Ben to watch his step. A well-placed touch of the Taser can help keep someone on his best behavior.”

“You cannot take that to school, Geeg. I’m going to get phone calls,” I told her.

“I know,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Cal ordered a special mount for my car, so I can store it under the driver’s seat. He showed me how to fire it and which areas of the body work best. And if I Tase someone just to see if it works, he will take it away. And on that note, I’m going. I’ll call you.”

“Do not get that stuff out of your purse unless you feel uncomfortable,” I told her. “People have very little tolerance for accidental electrocution.”

Cal nudged her shoulder and told her, “Remember.” Then he began an odd sort of dance in which he gestured to his neck, his armpits, and his groin. She rolled her eyes again and slung her arms around him. He froze,
and I was about to warn her off, but he awkwardly patted her back. She gave me an absent wave and bolted out the door.

“What the hell?” I demanded, doing a bad impression of the dance he’d just performed.

“I was just reminding her of the most painful places to be Tased,” he said.

“You know, I’m going to forward the calls to your cell phone the first time she zaps some hapless classmate’s junk because she’s having a bad day.”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he said solemnly. He pulled a little box from behind the couch.

“What’s this?”

“I got one for you, too,” he said as I pulled out a frightening-looking box proclaiming the make and model of my very own Taser. It was green, with a floral-print holster.

“Wow, Cal, I don’t know what to say.”

Really. How
do
you respond when someone gifts you with nonlethal law-enforcement equipment? If I was a rational person, I would thank him and turn it down. But considering the rate at which I’d been accosted, attacked, or just plain annoyed over the last few weeks, I thanked him politely and stuck it in my purse.

“Just say you’ll read the instruction manual,” he said sternly. “I think Gigi only skimmed it because she knew I was going to quiz her.”

He was really, sincerely, worried about her. I could see it written all over his face: the furrowed brow, the tense mouth. I saw that in my reflection more often than
I cared to admit. Cal wasn’t just worried about this unknown entity targeting vampires. He wanted Gigi safe from everything, and just like me, he realized that placing her in a hermetically sealed habitat wasn’t possible. Not to mention that it was cost-prohibitive.

For so long, I’d been the only one worrying about Gigi. To share that weight, however willingly I’d taken it on, was a sublime thing. Touched by his inappropriately applied concern, I kissed his mouth with a resounding smack. His arms wound around me, pulling me close. The tension seemed to melt away from my body.

“What was that for?” he asked, pushing waves of hair back from my face.

I rested my forehead against his throat and sighed. “No reason.”

—

As expected, Cal barely disturbed the limbs as he wound his way through the trees, as lithe and smooth as spilled mercury. I felt like a clambering elephant by contrast, clomping around, leaving footprints and damaged foliage wherever I went.

Two people hiking through the woods with flashlights would seem suspicious if we were seen from the road, so we had to rely on Cal’s considerable night vision. I’d never hiked at night before. The leaves were a silvery ashen green, fluttering in a warm breeze like verdant lace. The night sounds—crickets chirping, birds calling—quieted as we passed, the animals sensing a predator coming close. It was also very dark. I had to hold on to his arm to stay upright on a couple of occasions.

There was no trail, but I hadn’t thought there would be. Mom and I used to just wander, keeping mindful of private fence lines and hunting stands. We were always careful not to go out during peak deer and turkey seasons, because that would be an embarrassing way to die.

Just ask Jane.

The site we were looking for was about three miles from the road. We stayed quiet, moving as quickly as we could. Cal seemed tense, constantly scanning the horizon, tracking every noise. I knew we’d both been through a lot, but I doubted that the poisoner was lurking behind a tree somewhere just in case we happened to wander by.

I kept my eyes on the ground, watching for the distinctive leaf patterns. This meant that I didn’t see Cal stop short, and I plowed into his back.

“Ow,” I grumbled, rubbing my bruised nose. “Stupid vampire stealth. Why’d you stop?”

Cal pointed to an oddly inorganic shape, nestled in a little clearing among tall pines. The prefabricated metal walls reflected dull grayish mint green in the light of the full moon, covered with an artfully shredded green tarp, made up to look like leaves. This was a new building, well maintained. And judging by the closely trimmed grass surrounding the concrete pad, it had been visited recently. In fact, most of the ground in the surrounding area was cleared. It had been harvested. Something had grown there in neatly furrowed rows. I couldn’t estimate the size of the plot, because of the darkness, but it had been sizable.

“That …” I said, squinting at the heavily draped outbuilding. “Seems out of place.”

I checked our exact coordinates. “We’re just a few degrees off of the location Mom and I found before.” I pulled out my county map to determine our location in reference to roads. “And we’re about twenty miles from the nearest house. This could be a hunting shack. Some guys around here lease a plot in the middle of a farm or old homesteads so they can hunt in peace.”

He gestured to the windowless little cube, which lacked the charming little touches hunters used to mark their territory. License plates from long-defunct trucks, wind chimes made of beer tabs, deer skulls sporting sunglasses and trucker hats. “Does that look like a hunting shack to you?”

“No. You don’t have to wait for a warrant or anything, do you?” I asked as we circled to the nondescript metal door. “Just in case we find something?”

He snorted, dropping to his knee to examine the door. It was fitted with a standard Master Lock, which Cal ripped off like it was some cheap papier-mâché decoration. “Ophelia’s more of a ‘solve the problem by any means necessary, and we’ll worry about paperwork later’ sort of administrator. You watch too much
Law and Order
.”

I grasped the door handle, and Cal grabbed my wrist.

“It could be rigged.”

“What sort of moron would rig a booby trap on the inside of the building where he couldn’t reach it when he needed to open the only door?”

“Good point,” he admitted.

“You watch too much
Burn Notice
,” I told him primly as I pulled the door open. Since we did not, in fact, blow up, I stepped inside to find drying racks, planting tables stocked with terra-cotta pots, organized shelves of pruning shears, spades, plant-food mixers—all the tools needed to run a remote operation like this. Unfortunately for us, there was no helpful sign on the wall saying, “This evil botanical lair belongs to …”

“I need pictures,” Cal said, taking out his digital camera. “Could you look around, see if you spot anything unusual or particularly interesting?”

“Well, the fact that this guy isn’t growing weed is pretty interesting,” I retorted as I studied the peat pots sprouting tiny seedlings.

Cal gave me an amused look, which I took as a prompt to continue.

“Why do you think our green-thumbed friend took so much time to camouflage this building? The chances of someone stumbling here on foot are pretty slim, but the state police do regular helicopter circuits, checking for marijuana patches. Growers who aren’t sophisticated enough to buy grow lights and hydroponic sets will sneak out at night and put in plants in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes farmers have a quarter acre of pot growing in some remote corner of their property and have no clue.”

“How do you know so much about the habits of marijuana farmers?” he asked.

I waggled my eyebrows at him. “Misspent youth.”

“Really?”

“No, I watch the news. I thought you were supposed to be a truth seeker. Dork.”

“I offer her the world, and she calls me a dork,” he muttered.

“I don’t recall being offered—”

The door slid shut behind us, an internal mechanism locking with a resounding snick.

We both turned toward the noise. Cal hissed, his fangs bared as he threw me behind him and crouched defensively. A metallic pinging, the sound of another padlock being looped through the outside brackets.

We could hear footsteps outside, shuffling. A vent opened over the door, above our heads. I could hear the faint electric whir of a fan. Air-conditioning seemed like a strangely thoughtful gesture for someone who was locking me into a small enclosed space with a vampire.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Whoever that is better open the door quick or …”

Before I could come up with a threat violent enough, a strange yellowish-gray dust began circulating from the vent in a swirling billow. I sneezed mightily, waving my hand in front of my face to ward away the pollen. The footsteps outside stopped. Either our host had wandered away, or he was waiting for something.

“This can’t be good.” I grunted, yanking at the door handle. I couldn’t budge it a millimeter. “You want to help me here, Mr. Superstrength?”

Cal nodded slowly, as if his head was fuzzy. He ambled toward the door. The moment he touched the handle, he hissed and yanked his hand back. The skin of his hand
was sizzling and gray, like badly cooked meat. “Silver.” He hissed. “The handle is very pure silver.”

He stumbled back, holding his burned hands up as if to keep me away. “Well, who the hell would put a silver handle on the inside—” I grumbled. “Hey, are you OK?”

He shook his head. “I feel strange.”

“What can I do?” I stepped toward him, but he fell back against the drying racks, scrambling away from me.

“Stay away.” He growled, his voice guttural. His eyes were strange, flashing almost yellow, before the pupils flared and nearly overtook the irises entirely. “Iris, get away from me.”

“Cal!” I yelped, rattling the handle behind me as he advanced. His shoulders were hunched in a predatory crouch, the muscles bunching in a way that reminded me of a jungle cat.

“Cal, it’s me!” I cried. “Cal, please snap out of it. I know you don’t want to hurt me.”

His lips were pulled back from his fangs in a feral snarl. I bit my lip to keep a whimper from escaping as he lunged closer. His throat rumbled. His nose grazed my cheek as he inhaled deeply. His fangs scraped across my jugular, leaving tiny pinprick scratches that only hinted of blood.

As he continued to lick my throat, I slipped my hand toward the worktable. There was a stack of little gardening plaques with sharp wooden stakes attached. I wrapped my fingers around one, sobbing lightly as I wound my arm around his shoulder. He didn’t even notice the awkward posture as he feasted on the skin just
over my pulse point. I pressed the stake against his back, just over his heart.

“Please, please, I don’t want to do this to you,” I whispered. Cal’s ears seemed to perk at the sound of my voice, and his head snapped toward my mouth. The blacks of his eyes were bottomless, soulless. There was nothing of my Cal there. This was the monster. I whimpered, my bottom lip tearing under the pressure of my teeth. I could feel the blood welling into my mouth.

Not good.

I pressed the tip of the stake into his back as he lunged. He claimed my mouth, lapping at the blood, pulling it from my torn flesh in deep drafts. Each pass of his tongue seemed to inflame and calm him at the same time. He purred, tugging my bottom lip into his mouth and pulling me flush against him. I scrambled against the door, winding my legs around his waist to keep from falling.

The slick, metallic taste of my blood didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would, the flavor adding a primal element to an already wild struggle. I tugged at his hair, trying to force his face away, but he only growled. I pulled harder, and his head snapped up, eyes wild and lost.

Palms up, submissive, I traced his cheeks with my fingertips. His dark eyes narrowed, blinking wildly as if trying to remember the identity of the silly human pinned under him. I tried to lower my legs to the ground, but he growled, and I froze immediately. Unable to stop the trembling of my hands, I clenched them into fists, my
nails biting little half-moons into the flesh of my palms. I felt blood trickling into my palms.
No, no, no. Not good
.