Jane Goes Batty (4 page)

“This is all I get?” Jane asked Lucy. “A postcard announcing a half-price sale at Bed Bath and Beyond?”

“I could try getting them drunk again,” Byron said thoughtfully.

“You keep out of it,” said Jane as she dropped the postcard into the trash. “It’s bad enough you turned … Ted?” she asked, looking at Lucy.

“
Ned,
” Lucy said. “Honestly, is it really so hard?”

“Ned,” Jane continued, ignoring her and speaking to Byron. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

“It was a momentary lapse in judgment,” Byron argued. “He read my work so
beautifully.
”

“Oh, well then,” said Jane. “That’s perfectly understandable.”

“Would you two please shut up,” Lucy hissed. “They’re right outside.”

Byron and Jane looked at her with wounded expressions. Lucy, unmoved, held up a finger. “Not another word about turning anyone,” she said to Byron. She looked at Jane. “And yes, that’s all the mail for you today. I’ll handle the rest. And anyone else would be ecstatic about getting half off a duvet or waffle iron or whatever, so don’t give me that look.”

Byron watched her leave. “She’s quite a girl, isn’t she?” he remarked.

“Yes, she is,” said Jane.

“Pity she doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Byron said.

“We’ve been through this before,” said Jane. “Don’t even think about it.”

“I’m not talking about
myself,
” Byron said. “I’m just thinking out loud.”

“Did you really come here just to see that boy?” asked Jane.

Byron shook his head as he shut the door. “Well, that was an incentive,” he admitted. “But I really came to congratulate you on your vanishing yesterday.”

“Well, thank you,” Jane said. “I did a rather neat job of it, I think.”

Byron shook his head. “I’ve seen year-old vampires who could dematerialize more successfully,” he said. “But it’s a start.”

“Beast!” Jane exclaimed. “You can’t expect me to do it instantly. I’m not a trained dog, for heaven’s sake.”

“You won’t always have time, Jane,” Byron said. “What would you do if you were confronted by a vampire killer?”

Jane sighed. “I would glamor him—or her—as much as possible and then summon you to deal with the problem.”

“You can’t,” said Byron. “I’ve been staked. You’re on your own.”

“Oh, bother. Well, I suppose I could drain him—or her—myself, but you know I draw the line at murder.”

“You did kill Our Gloomy Friend,” Byron reminded her.

“She was already dead,” said Jane.

“You didn’t know that at the time,” Byron countered. “You thought she was a psychotic blogger who was trying to blackmail you.”

Jane huffed. “Anyway, I didn’t push her into that fire. She
fell
. And she came back and tried to kill
us
, in case you’ve forgotten.” She paused, remembering Lucy’s earlier question. “Speaking of Our Gloomy Friend, I wonder where she is. Do you think she’ll try again? It’s been nine months.”

“That’s barely a second in vampire time,” Byron answered. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she was planning something. But that’s even more reason for you to perfect your vanishing. When you are faced with someone wishing to do you harm, the best course of action is to simply disappear.” He looked thoughtful. “Of course, you could always transform yourself into a bat, but—”

“A bat?” Jane exclaimed. “I thought that was a myth.”

Byron shook his head. “No, it’s quite true. But it’s a very advanced technique. You’re not nearly ready for it.”

“What else can I turn into?” asked Jane.

“That’s it,” said Byron. “Just a bat. And no, I don’t know why. That’s just how it is.”

“But if one can turn into a bat, then doesn’t that suggest that the power of transformation might be more widely—”

“A
bat
,” Byron repeated sternly. “Not a cat, not a wolf, not a giant sloth. A bat. And
you
can’t even do that. Not until you master disappearing.”

“I wasn’t aware there was a larger goal,” said Jane. “Perhaps
I just needed some incentive. I mean, a bat … well, that’s something.” A thought occurred to her. “What
kind
of bat?” she asked.

Byron sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “A vampire bat, I suppose.”

“But there are lots of kinds of bats,” Jane countered. “Fruit bats. Spotted bats. Little brown bats. And of course the flying foxes, which aren’t foxes at all but—”

“Tell you what,” Byron interrupted. “One night I’ll turn into a bat and you can look me up in a field guide.”

“Don’t think I won’t,” said Jane. “Now let me try disappearing again.”

“No,” Byron said. “I don’t want
trying;
I want
doing
. Go home and practice, and don’t call me until you’re absolutely sure you can vanish and stay vanished for at least five minutes.”

“That could take centuries,” said Jane moodily.

Byron smiled. “Then it’s a good thing we’re vampires.” He opened the door. “Now I’m going to see if Ned would like to get some lunch.”

“Ted,” Jane said without thinking. “You mean Ted.”

“Whichever,” said Byron. “They’re both delicious.”

When Byron was gone Jane picked up
Judaism for Dummies
and opened it. She sighed.
I hope being Jewish is easier than being a vampire
, she thought.
There has to be something I’m good at
.

“F
LOWERING BOSOM, INDEED,
” J
ANE SIGHED AS SHE TOOK A SIP OF
wine from the glass next to her keyboard. The glass was almost empty.
Should I have some more?
she asked herself, knowing full well that she should not. She’d already refilled the glass twice. Although her altered constitution allowed her to tolerate more than a normal human body could, she was nonetheless feeling the effects of the merlot.

“I believe I’m tipsy, Jasper,” she announced. The dog, splayed on the rug beside her chair, thumped his stub of a tail.

“I must be if I thought listening to Marschner was a wise idea.” She picked up the CD case and looked at it. The cover depicted a naked woman seated on a bed, her back to the viewer. In front of her stood a dark-haired man wearing a tuxedo. Only if
one looked very closely would one see the drops of blood on the man’s shirt and the two tiny punctures on the woman’s neck. “
Der Vampyr,
” Jane said in a deep voice, then giggled. “Honestly.”

Marschner’s opera was not really to her liking. For one thing, she found the German language completely without appeal. As a friend had once said, “It always sounds as if they’re on the verge of coughing something up.” For another, the libretto was ridiculous. “Not that most of them aren’t,” Jane remarked to Jasper. “But this one is particularly melodramatic. You see, Lord Ruthven is a vampire. One night—I don’t know why—the Vampire Master comes to him and informs him that unless he is able to kill three virgins before the clock strikes one the next morning, he’ll die. If he
can
kill three of them, he gets to live another year.”

Jane took another drink of wine. “Of course there is no such thing as a Vampire Master,” she continued. “And the rest is equally silly. Something about a cave and moonlight and Ruthven pretending to be his own brother. It all ends badly for him and he goes to hell.”

Jasper yawned.

“My sentiments exactly,” Jane agreed. “Still, I can’t help feeling a bit sentimental toward it.”

In the spring of 1828 she had been dead for nearly eleven years and the novelty had not yet worn off. For reasons she could not now recall she was in Leipzig. Hearing that a new opera about a vampire had recently premiered, she was curious to see it. When she found out that the opera was based on Dr. John Polidori’s novel
The Vampyre
, she was even more intrigued. It was Polidori, after all, who had vacationed with Byron at the villa on Lake Geneva the summer Jane was turned.

“I suppose I thought I might understand him better or some such foolish notion,” Jane informed Jasper. “Byron, that is. I hadn’t quite given up hope that he might yet love me.”

The opera had devastated her. Sitting in the darkness of the
balcony she had watched with mounting terror as the young woman, Janthe, fell under the spell of the handsome vampire and became his first victim. Several times she had to stop herself from crying out to the girl to run. But just as Jane had been entranced by Byron’s beauty, Janthe fell prey to Ruthven’s charms. During the soprano’s final lines Jane had wept uncontrollably, and at the intermission she had fled into the night.

She had returned to the opera a week later, determined to see it through to the end. This time as she watched Lord Ruthven seduce and destroy first Janthe and then Emily, her sorrow was replaced with anger. At the finale, when Ruthven’s evil plan to marry the chaste and virtuous Malwina and thus secure his immortality was thwarted by Malwina’s true love, Edgar, Jane applauded fiercely, not only for the fine performances but for the triumph of good over evil.

For years she had hated Byron and often thought about what she would say or do should she see him again. Then, when he’d first appeared in her bookshop, she had immediately felt the draw of him as if no time at all had passed. He was still dashing, and his wit had grown even sharper over the centuries. She had even succumbed to his charms once again and spent a night with him.

They had since come to terms with each other, and although Jane knew they could never again be lovers, there were still moments when she thought she was meant to be with him. She wouldn’t have to explain anything to him, or worry about him growing old.

“And I wouldn’t have to become Jewish,” she told Jasper.

But she wasn’t in love with Byron. Now she was in love with Walter, and she and Byron were merely friends. Besides, Byron was always falling in love with other men, which made it considerably more difficult to imagine spending an eternity with him.

Jane pushed thoughts of Byron and vampires and Leipzig from her mind and turned back to the computer screen. She had
decided to play
Der Vampyr
out of some hope that it might inspire her. She had a vague idea that she wanted to write about longing and loss, and she thought perhaps listening to Marschner’s opera would put her in the mood.

It had not. At the top of the page of the open word-processing document was “Chapter 3.” Beneath that was precisely one sentence.
And it’s not even a good one
, Jane thought miserably.

Her new book had been due on her editor’s desk at the first of the year. Six months later—despite assuring Kelly that she was almost finished—she had barely begun it. Every day she sat down at the computer determined to write a chapter, and every day the hours passed with excruciating slowness as she did everything but write. After several months of this she had reduced her daily goal from a chapter to a page, and a few months after that from a page to a paragraph. Now she would be content with a sentence or two.

She should, she knew, be ecstatically enthusiastic about writing this novel.
Constance
was a huge success. Her bank account was full. The letters and emails from fans were gratifying. There was the movie to look forward to. And the reviews had been wonderful.

Well, most of them had been wonderful. There was one that continued to gnaw at Jane’s confidence. And like most stinging reviews, this one irked her because it mirrored her own fears about her novel’s flaws.

Instinctively she directed the mouse’s cursor to her Favorites folder and clicked on the link to Failures of Mimicry. The blog’s front page filled her browser window. Its tagline, “In which we prosecute crimes of literary identity theft,” leered at her in mocking accusation. She blushed.

She glanced at the latest entry. “Faux Faulkner: Peter Nesbitt’s Yucknapatawpha County,” she read. Much to her annoyance she found herself laughing at the play on Faulkner’s celebrated
fictional setting. She did not, however, read the accompanying text. Instead, she went to the blog’s listing of earlier entries. For a moment she considered looking at “The Last Brontësaurus: Is Mary McTennant’s Ice Age upon Her?” Then she selected “Austenish: Jane Fairfax’s
Constance
Has an Identity Crisis.”

She had read the review so many times that she had memorized it. Still, there was something about seeing it in its original form that made revisiting it even more painful. As she read the words Jane mouthed them silently. She flew through the opening paragraphs quickly, slowing when she reached the heart of the post.