Undead and Unwed (5 page)

 
I bounded up the porch steps, knocked twice, then turned the knob. Unlocked—one of the things I loved about Hastings.

 
I stepped into the living room and saw an old woman sitting in my mother's chair. She had my mother's curly white hair (Mom had started going gray in high school), and was wearing my mom's black suit, and my mom's pearls—a wedding gift from her parents.

 
"Who—?" '—are you', I almost asked, but of course it was my mother. Shock and grief had put twenty years on her face. She'd gotten pregnant with me one month out of high school, and we'd often been mistaken for sisters. Not today.

 
She stared. She tried to speak but her mouth trembled and made speech impossible. She gripped the arms of her rocking chair so hard I heard the bones creak. I rushed across the room and threw myself at the foot of her chair. She looked so dreadful I was terrified. "Mom, it's me—it's okay! I'm okay!"

 
"This is the worst dream I've ever had," she remarked to no one in particular. I felt her hand come up and gently touch the top of my head. "Yes indeed."

 
"It's not a dream, Mom." I grabbed her hand, pressed it to my cheek. "See? It's real." I pinched her leg through the skirt, hard enough to make her yelp. "See?"

 
"You wretched child, I'm going to have a bruise the size of a plum." I felt her tears dripping down on my face. "You awful, awful child. Such a burden. Such a—" She started to cry in earnest and couldn't finish the familiar, well-loved fake complaints.

 
We held each other for a long time.

* * * * *

 
"Don’t be scared," I said about half an hour later, "but I'm a vampire."

 
"As Jessica would say, 'I don't give a shit.' Also, you move faster than the human eye can track. Did you know?"

 
"What?"
 

 
Mom tossed a handful of freshly grated Parmesan into the risotto and stirred. "When you ran to me. I blinked and you were at my feet. You moved faster than I could follow. Either you've been involved in some sort of secret scientific government-sponsored experiment and never mentioned it—"

 
"No, but that's a good one. I'll have to remember it."

 
"Or there's a supernatural explanation."

 
I blinked. Mom had always had a strong practical streak, but she was adjusting to my undead status with unbelievable aplomb.
 

 
She must have read my expression, because she said, "Sweetie, you were dead. I was at the morgue. I saw."

 
I was silent, picturing her agony. The long walk down the sterile-smelling hallway—sterile, with a faint whiff of death underneath. Burning fluorescent lights. A professionally sympathetic doctor. Then, the identification: "Yes, that's my daughter. What's left of her."

 
"Just about every culture has legends about vampires. I've often thought there must be some truth in the stories...else why would there be so many of them?"

 
"By that logic," I said, "I can assume the Easter Bunny will be stopping by this month?"

 
"Funny girl. Risotto?"

 
"Please." Mom had stopped crying, washed her face, changed out of the suit she wore to my funeral, and cooked my favorite meal: pork loin with risotto. Like Jessica, she couldn't stop touching me. Like I minded! "I'm
so
hungry, and that smells terrific."

 
I wolfed it down in about thirty seconds. Then I spent five minutes in the bathroom throwing it all up. Mom held my hair back from my face and, when I finished and slumped dispiritedly on the bathroom tile, she handed me a damp washcloth.

 
I started to cry, that weird tearless crying that was now my specialty. "I can't have regular food anymore! No more risotto, shrimp cocktail, lobster, prime rib—"

 
"Cancer, AIDS, death-by-mugging, rape, homicide."

 
I looked up. Mom looked down at me with the compassion/practicality combo that was her trademark. I'd seen that look when I told her I was going to flunk out of college. "I'd like to be more sympathetic," she said, "but I'm so happy to have you back, Elizabeth. As awful as it's been for you, you have no idea what the last three days have been like for me, for your father and your friends—I thought Jessica was going to collapse at the funeral home. I didn't think the girl
could
cry, but she practically melted today. Your father didn't even recognize me, he was in such a daze."

 
"Oh...Mom."

 
"But I never have to worry about going to the morgue again, unless you trip on a stake on the way home. As to the rest of it: we'll deal."

 
I scowled. "I don't think people who can eat risotto should have an opinion."

 
"Silly child. It's just fuel. Brush your fangs, and then we'll talk some more."

 
"Very funny!" I yelled after her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

 
I pulled into my driveway at 4:30 in the morning. There was a strange car parked on my street, a white Taurus. As I walked past I peeked inside and saw the bubble light. Cop. And when I entered my house I could smell Detective Nick Berry's clean, distinctive scent. Which, by the way, I'd never been able to do before. Whenever I saw him at the station, all I could smell were stale croissants (the doughnut thing is a myth) and old coffee.

 
He hurried out of my kitchen and stopped dead when he saw me. His jaw sagged and he made a motion toward the gun in his shoulder holster.
 

 
"Oh,
that's
nice," I snapped. "Don’t you dare pull a gun on me in my own house. And where's your warrant?"

 
"I didn't need one, seeing as how you're dead."

 
"Boy, Jessica just couldn't
wait
to tell you, could she?" I'd strangle her the next time I saw her. I said my undeath wasn't a secret, but I didn't mean she should run to the cops first thing. Her matchmaking was going to be the end of me. Well, probably not. "That jerk...friends are such a mixed blessing."

 
"I didn't believe her—figured it was a rotten joke--but promised her I'd check it out. Did you know it's against the law to fake your own death? The D.A.'s gonna be pissed."

 
"Believe it or not, Nick, that is the
least
of my problems right now."

 
He'd been staring at me while we talked, and as I kicked off my tennis shoes he crossed the room. To my complete astonishment, he pulled me into his arms like a hero in a romance novel.

 
"God," he said, staring into my eyes. We were exactly the same height, so it was a little unnerving. His eyes were light brown, with green flecks. His pupils were huge. "You're so beautiful."

 
I was still frozen with amazement. Nick had touched me a few times—mostly to shake my hand, and once our fingers brushed when he handed me a Milky Way—but he'd always been cool, pleasant, and nice. Nice Guy nice. I had sensed zero interest, which is why I'd never pursued him—and why Jessica's hints and intimations were so annoying. But now—

 
"God," he said again, and kissed me. Except it was more like he was trying to swallow me. His tongue shoved into my mouth and suddenly I was breathing his breath. This was startling, but not unpleasant. Then: "Ow!" He jerked back and touched his lower lip, where a tiny drop of blood welled. "You bit me."

 
"Sorry—you thtartled me. I mean, you took me by thurprise. Oh, thit." I could
not
look away from that tiny little crimson drop. It gleamed. It beckoned. It begged to be tasted. "Nick, you thould go. Right now."

 
"But you're so beautiful," he whispered, and kissed me again, more gently. I tasted his blood, and that was that. Had I thought I was thirsty before? The strongest, most compelling craving I had ever known completely took me over. I kissed him back, sucked on his lower lip, and then we were tearing at each other's clothes like a couple of horny teenagers. I heard the 'clunk' of his holster hitting the floor, heard the jingle of the coins in his pockets as his slacks hit the floor in a polyester puddle, heard the riiiiiiiiiiiip that meant I'd need to buy a new t-shirt. I had no idea what had happened to my leggings. He could have eaten them for all I would have noticed.

 
I tore my mouth from his, jerked his face to the side, and bit him on the side of the neck. I wasn't remotely horrified. There was no reticence at all, no maidenly shrinking at the thought of drinking his blood like it was a Cosmopolitan. I couldn't wait. I
wouldn't
wait.
 

 
I'd been prepared to really bite down, but my fangs slid through his skin like a laser scalpel, and then his blood was flooding my mouth. My knees buckled as my body truly came alive for the first time since that Aztek knocked me into a tree. Everything was suddenly loud and bright and vivid; Nick's heartbeat thundered in my ears. I could smell his sweat. I could smell his lust—like crisp shavings of cedar.

 
I felt myself get slammed up against the wall and thought,
oh, oh, Nick doesn't think much of this...poor bastard
. However, my thoughts were wrong, because he grabbed me around the thighs, and then I felt him shove himself inside me, all at once, all the way.

 
Now, I can count the number of sexual partners I've had on one hand. On three fingers, in fact. Madame Slut I am not. And with every one, as with most women, it took time and manipulation to make me come. That whole three strokes and it's time to ride the orgasm train thing is a pure myth, and I feel sorry for women who believe it and then think there's something wrong with them when they need more than a slap and tickle to get off.
 

 
That said, when Nick slammed into me, when he took his cock in hand and shoved me apart and entered me with a brutal thrust while his blood was in my mouth, I was instantly jolted into orgasm. It was a shallow one, the kind you get when you're diddling with yourself and squeeze your knees together at just the right moment, but a come is a come (I should stitch that on a sampler sometime). Drinking blood had made everything more
there
, all sensations were more intense and opened a vein of sensuality I never dreamed existed.

 
He thrust, he shoved, his broad swimmer's chest was pressed up against mine hard enough to flatten my breasts. He was sweating and panting and groaning, and I realized I didn't need to drink anymore, my thirst was gone and I felt better than I ever had. I felt like jumping over the house. Maybe I even could.

 
I stopped drinking and pulled back, licking the bite mark to get the last few drops. Nick throbbed between my legs and then he was collapsing out of me, clutching me with both hands as he fought to keep his feet. I could feel his come running down my thighs; it burned, probably because I was so cold. And I was shocked—I could have run (and won) a marathon, and poor Nick looked half dead.

 
"Oh, Jesus—"

 
"Don't," he whispered against my neck.

 
"Nick, I'm so sorry, I—"

 
"Don't stop," he managed. "Do more. Bite me. Again."

 
The full impact of his request hit me, and in my horror I nearly dropped him. I suddenly remembered the church janitor…

 
(you're pretty)

 
…and the minister…

 
(a beautiful stranger)

 
…and how odd they'd seemed, odd but, as I was having such a strange night myself I'd shrugged off their reactions. Now here was Nick, a perfectly pleasant man who had showed no interest in me except as a witness, Nick with his pants around his ankles and his dick in his hand and blood on his throat, Nick who wanted me to bite him again.
Again!

 
Not only could I live through car crashes and electrocution, not only could I toss grown men like they were magazines, but I could make men want me. They looked at me and wanted me, didn't care if I drained them dry as long as they could fuck me while I did it.

 
I got ready to yowl with horror and frustration, when I got a grip…

 
(you've overreacted enough the last two days)

 
…and instead picked Nick up and carried him to my room like he was a blonde, male Scarlett and I was an undead Rhett.
 

* * * * *

 
"So it's true."

 
"What is, Nick?"

 
"Vampires."

 
"...yes. It's true. I'm really, really sorry."

 
He propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at me. We'd been lying in bed, side by side, for about ten minutes. I was both relieved and frightened when he started talking. "Don’t be sorry. That was the best of my life. Did you—" He paused. "Did you get enough to...eat?"