Odd Stuff (27 page)

As I let all of my rambling out, she towel dried her hair. She got dressed. She threw me clothes. Then she rummaged in the pile of miscellany on the top of the dresser and came up with car keys and one of Vance’s credit cards. 

“Come on,” she said when I’d run out of words. 

“Where are we going? No sage advice from the witch?”

“Oh, yeah, I have sage advice.”

“And it is?”

“Spa day and chocolate.” Her grin was positively evil. 

“Oh-h,” I sighed. “Spa day and chocolate…” 

“Sure to fix any bad week.” We headed downstairs and found the car. We drove to the local bakery and bought a cheesecake and had most of it for breakfast between the two of us. Laughing like kids, we earned a few glares from other patrons. Mia flicked a wrist and one, a loud man with a small battered looking woman, found he was unable to stop himself from sticking his hand in the middle of a devil’s food cake on display. That did not help our giggling, it set us off. This was the sort of thing that made Mia such a fun friend in high school. “Have you seen that old movie, the one with the witch sisters who are cursed and lime in the coconut?” 

“The one where they both have long hair?” She sipped her drink.

“Yeah.” I grinned. “Every time I see that movie I think of you.” 

“If only,” she muttered. “I wish I had Nicole’s bod. I mean, was there a spell for that?”

“I don’t know, but if you find one, call me and I want you to cast it on me, too. My butt has been growing the past few years. What is up with that? It’s like you pass twenty five and the metabolism just slows down.”

She leaned over the table, looking at me. “I have heard it gets worse when we pass forty.” 

“Shut up.” I bit my lip. “Has your sex drive gone all wonky, too?” 

“Oh, my gosh, yes. I read up on that one. It turns out that men hit their sexual peaks at eighteen. Women don’t hit theirs till—get this,
thirty-three
. We are having the equivalent in hormone production to eighteen year old boys. Remember those groping idiots? It’s our turn to be groping idiots.” 

“No way!” I scooped at a crumb of cheesecake on my plate.

“Seriously. From what I understand, we will be sex fiends by forty. But we aren’t even going to be hot enough to make anyone want to bang us, based on the growth of my ass. It isn’t fair.” 

I eyed her. “Unless we get married.”

She grinned. “Yup, ‘cause that throws sex right out the window. Then we won’t want it even with the hormones.” We laughed and headed back to the hotel for the spa appointments Mia had called in. 

Getting massaged, we stayed on the topic of sex. Women actually talk a lot about sex, contrary to male popular belief. “Did you know that pig’s orgasms last a half an hour?” I grinned. “Someone posted this thing on social media and—” 

“Was it that one that told you that, and then added that dolphins and humans were the only creatures on this planet that have sex for pleasure?” 

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I
thought
I forwarded it to you.”

“Yeah, but pigs don’t have sex for pleasure even though their orgasms last a half an hour…and they say pigs are
smart
.” 

“Yeah.” I pointed a finger at her. “But what about dogs? I mean, they hump, like, anything. Isn’t that sex for pleasure?” 

“Depends.” Mia waved her hand in the air. “If you are going by the Webster’s definition of sex or the Clinton one.” 

We moved on to pedicures and amber alerts from there. “So, why don’t they plant micro-chip-thingys in kids so that they can’t get lost? Like you just point and click on your laptop, and poof! There is little Johnny.” 

“Paranoid people,” I responded. “I mean, if we can afford to put them in dogs, can it really be that expensive to do?”

“Wait, back up.” She looked down at her toes and wiggled them.

“Yeah?”

“What do paranoid people have to do with planting microchips in our kids so we can find them if they get kidnapped?”

“Two levels, here. On the first, if we did that, wouldn’t the sickos know we did it and, like, carve them out of the kids?”

“Blech.” She pulled a dramatic face at me.

“Okay, now say that we ignore that and plant a microchip in every kid under ten.”

“Sounds great. You would always know where your kid was and kidnapping would be wiped out of possibility.”

“But wait…then those kids start turning sixteen, and they are still in there.” 

“Great. No more teenage pregnancy. We bust them when their heart rate rises. Oh, like, we make the chips able to monitor heart rate and temperature. When your kid has a fever you would know. And when your kid was getting nasty in the back of a Chevy, and—”  

“Hang on.” I raised a hand. “Okay, then your kid robs a bank and we can wipe out all crime because we know exactly who was where when stuff went down and—” 

“Sounds great!” Mia grinned.

“But—” 

“You always have a but,” she muttered.

“The government then knows everything about everyone. More kids have gotten them…eventually we all have them.” 

“Yeah, so?”

“Big brother would have nothing on that one.”

She shivered delicately. “Okay, I see your point.”

“Do you think the government knows about things like vampires, witches, all that?”

She looked at me. “Makes you wonder…” 

“Wonder what?”

“Maybe they do. Maybe they help keep all of the other stuff, anything beyond the norm, hidden from the regular people.”

“Why would they?” I wondered. “I mean, you could tax blood. You could make a per spell tax…you would think there would be a lot of money in making oddities mainstream.” 

“Picture the hysteria. I mean, our country goes buggy over a man marrying a man, what would they do about a man marrying a dog? Like a werewolf? Or a woman marrying a human leech, aka vampire. It would mean mass insanity. People would be loading up with holy water, stakes and silver bullets.”

“Oh, that is an unpleasant thought.” The woman doing my toes looked at us as if we were completely and utterly insane. 

“Book plot,” I told her. She smiled, relieved to have a logical explanation. 

I looked at Mia with raised brows, and she giggled.

We headed back upstairs. Feeling pampered and decadent did a lot to our flagging spirits. Curling up with a chick flick, we dozed off together in the monstrous bed. I woke as the sun set to the sound of something moving in the closet. In a moment, the door opened and a ruffled Vance emerged. He took one look at me, hair coiffed, white terry cloth robed and pink toe nailed, and growled. “What?” I looked back at him. 

Mia stirred next to me.

“I had to spend the day sleeping in a hotel closet and you girls had a spa day?” 

“And we had cheesecake. And we used your credit card. But I feel less beat up and Janie feels less weird, right Janie?”

“Yup,” I concurred.

“I am thrilled for you both. I need a shower.”

“Out of towels. You’ll have to call up for some.” Mia stretched. 

“Freaking spa day,” he grumbled and left the room.

Mia and I laughed. Sometimes it’s good to be a girl. When he returned from his shower, Mia had gone to get some food, and I felt it was time to face the music, so to speak. 

“Vance, I’m leaving.”
There, that wasn’t so hard.
 

“Yeah, we should hit the road. You need to be home to get Vickie tomorrow.”

“Yes, that, too. But I’ve decided I’m not staying in Ashtabula. I’m moving in with my cousin in Colorado.” I said it simply and without inflection.  

“What made you decide that?” He had gone still and his expression was unreadable. I mean, the guy is a vampire. When he stills his face, there really
isn’t
a lot going on. I mean, he
is technically a dead guy.

“I can’t stay around you and Mia and hope to stay normal. I have known you, what, since Tuesday night? And here it is Saturday, and I have met vampires and magicians, and a score of other weird stuff. I have found out I’m an aura junkie, and broken my own vow not to sing. Twice. Now, if I sing again, I’m trapped in a life that I don’t want. I can’t risk it. How long until the next big bad thing and a choice between singing or losing one of you? I need to remove my daughter and me from this world before we’re trapped in it.” I looked into his eyes, hoping he’d understand. “I can’t be this. A part of me wants to, but I can’t. I have worked so hard my entire life not to be this thing…this monster. I can’t be it now.” 

“What if you have no choice? What if five minutes after you leave town, you sing? Then what?”

I looked at him. “I would come back. If I had no choice but to join the monsters, I wouldn’t leave you. I’ve known you less than a week, and yet I care about you, but I am
not
going to sing. So, what ifs don’t really matter.” 

“But it’s not me?” He was still very still and expressionless. 

“No. Why would it be you?” Baffled, I turned wide eyes on him.

“You aren’t running because you are afraid of me?”

I blinked at him, trying to decide if he was serious or not. “No. Why would I be afraid of you?” 

“Because I
am
a monster.”

Oh, well, yeah, he is.
He didn’t act much like a monster, other than the thing with blood drinking. It was like a mosquito. You know they drink blood, but you aren’t really bothered by the drinking itself, you’re more bothered by the itchy bump they leave behind. And they aren’t scary. I mean, they are
just
mosquitoes. 

Vance was a vampire and, yeah, I never saw him during the day. Yeah, he sucked a little blood, but other than that and the steak breath, he was just a regular guy. Super attractive, and nicer than any guys I knew, but just a guy who happened to hang out at night and didn’t eat much…

I had forgotten to be terrified of the blood drinking monster and even slept with it.

A lot.

I processed all of this and tried to work up a little terror, just to see if I could. But really, if you knew you had the power to swat the mosquito, would you be afraid of it? 

Nope.
I shook my head at him. “I kind of forgot how to be afraid of you at some point.” 

He let down whatever walls he’d erected, and his face broke into a smile. “My ego can take a lot, but scaring you off…all the way to Colorado, was kind of knocking it down a peg. I care about you, and I don’t want to lose you. But I don’t think you will be able to resist the pull of your abilities. I guess if I am not the problem, I can wait you out.” 

“I am not coming back. Seriously, I am not going to sing.”

He nodded. “And I was going to walk into the sun on my first morning as a vampire. Survival instincts are stronger than you think.”

“I won’t have to use survival instincts if I am away from all of this.”

“Okay, how about this? I give you ten years. If you haven’t sung by then, I will chase you down.” He stalked toward me, demonstrating how he could chase me down.

“And then I will say, how is Vickie?” He pinned me to the bed. “And if you say, ‘Why Vance, she is fantastic. She is out on her own, and I am just so bored and lonely. Will you run off with me and we can be monsters and have a hell of a time?’ I will say to you, ‘why yes. That sounds fantastic. Come with me and I will warm your nights and you will spend your days wishing I was there’.” 

“Yeah, because that sounds just like me.” I laughed.

“It will. Because you can’t resist me.”

“Ten years, huh? What makes you think you’ll still be interested in an almost fifty year old?” 

“Because no one else does it on a skylight.” He nuzzled my neck.

“Oh, yeah. There is that. So, you’ll wait for me because I’m good in bed?” 

“Yeah. Oh, did I forget to mention…” He wagged his eyebrows. He tried a bad impersonation and said, “I von to suck your blood.”

Laughing he rolled me over to sit on him, and Mia reentered the room. “God, can you keep your paws off each other for two minutes?” She balanced a tray of food.

“We are going to shoot for ten years.” I grinned at her.

“Yeah, so we need to start missing each other now. Why don’t you be a good witch and go ride a broom or something for a couple of hours?” asked Vance.

“Hang on let me find a broom.” Her tone was dry. “I know just where I’m going to shove it.” 

CHAPTER Fifteen

All of Vickie’s stuff was stowed with mine in the trunk of my beat up Focus. The plan was to stop back at Odd Stuff and say goodbye to everyone and head out in the morning. I walked through the mall at three thirty, which was a half an hour early, but I was missing Vickie so much that I hadn’t been able to wait. I sucked another sip out of my cherry slushie and looked at the backs of paperback books in front of the bookstore. It was funny. I had come here to come home. To be safe. To have time to relax and heal.

Instead, I had been too busy to notice that I had any wounds that needed tending. I had been certain that I would never be involved with a man again, and had gotten wrapped up in a whirlwind romance with a vampire. I had broken my vow not to use my abilities, but found that I was never quite complete without them.

I had come here, sure I knew what I needed, found nothing I had come for, and ended up finding everything I was sure I didn’t want.

But a part of me felt more alive than I had ever felt before.

Another part ached. I tried to ignore that part. It was the part that was weird. It wanted me to finish it. It wanted me to be what I was born to be. It was the Niagara Falls part that wanted to turn the water on full blast, erosion or not.

And lemme tell you, I would be lying if I said it wasn’t tempting. I mean, think about it…I could be the stuff of dreams. If you could wake up tomorrow with all the powers that the superheroes had, be
that
darn cool, wouldn’t a part of you want it? Come on, you know you would. Everyone wants to be more than mundane. To have that little extra something. And to know that your life really made a difference. But if you were given that choice, and knew you had a kid to raise…you would
have
to give it all up. You can’t be a homeroom mother by day and be a kick ass siren bitch by night. Leather and packing lunches did not mesh. Going to parent-teacher conferences by day, going after bad guys at night…illogical. And I was a mom. I had to be logical. I had to make the right choice, the safe choice.