Stake That (12 page)

Jareth parks the car and suggests we go around to the other side of the house. The backyard hasn’t gotten the same landscaping attention the front has and we have to push through tangled briar patches to get there, totally ripping up my tights. It’s worth the fishnet sacrifice, though, when we find an unlocked window and slip inside.

“Let’s find a closet or something to hide out in until the place closes for the night and the funeral guys go home,” Jareth suggests.

“Okay.” I feel like a guest star on
Six Feet Under,

We tiptoe out into the hallway and try a couple doors. The first leads to a bathroom and the second to a tiny darkened chapel. (Which would have been the perfect place to hide were itnot for the fact that Jareth’s feet would pretty much burn off walking on hallowed ground.) Finally, on the third try, we find what we’re looking for. A small broom closet filled with cleaning supplies that we’ll both fit in. Barely.

We squeeze in and Jareth pulls the door closed behind us. It’s dark. There’s no room to sit down and I pray that the wake is nearly over. Jareth’s leg brushes against mine, send-ing a whole host of tingling sensations through my body. Did I happen to mention how hot he is? Half of me totally wants to jump him. Let him take me, right here, right now. I have to keep reminding myself I don’t want him. I really
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don’t want him.

“Are you okay?” Jareth whispers. “You’re shaking.” Ugh. I’m shaking ‘cause he’s totally turning me on. But I can’t exactly tell him that, now can I? At the same time, the last thing I want to do is let him think I’m scared.

“Low blood sugar,” I whisper.”Ionly had an apple for lunch.” I actually had four slices of pizza with extra cheese, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Sorry,” he says. “We should have stopped at the drive-thru on the way. Sometimes I forget what it’s like to be hu-man. To have feeding needs.”

“What about you? You have feeding needs, too, right? But I’ve never see you with your donors.” He grimaces.”Idon’t like the idea of donors. I get my blood by mail order.” I raise an eyebrow. Interesting. “Really? Why?”

“Would you like seeing the cow before eating your steak?”

“Uh, no. But I’m a vegetarian. No cows for this chick.”

Jareth chuckles softly, the dim light catching his fangs and making them sparkle. “How are you going to become a vam-pire if you don’t like the taste of blood?”

Good question. One I hadn’t really given much thought to. “I figure I’ll learn to love it,” I say with a shrug.

“Sunny was totally grossed out by the idea of drinking blood until she actually tasted it. Then she developed an unquenchable thirst for the stuff.”

“Isee. Well, then I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Jareth says. “So have they told you who will be your blood mate yet?”

“No. After the whole Sunny mishap, I’m back at the bot-tom of the waiting list. Which sucks, pardon the pun. You’d think Magnus, being the master and all, could pull in a few favors for his girlfriend’s sister, but evidently not.”

“Maybe it’s because they haven’t found you a perfect match yet,” Jareth says. “Remember, your DNA has to be compatible.”

“Yeah, I know. Knowing me, there will never be another vamp with compatible DNA. I’ll be doomed to be a slayer for eternity.”

“That’s not true. They’ll find you a match. Actually I think you’d make a good vamp,” Jareth says shyly.

“Though perhaps a very stubborn, aggravating blood mate.”

“Heh.” I laugh. “So what’s your story? You on the prowl for a blood mate of your own?” As I ask the question, I suddenly realize I’m worried about his answer. For some rea-son, I really, really don’t want him to say yes.

He’s silent for a long moment, then says, “I don’t want a blood mate. They offered me one a few years
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back, but I re-fused.”

“But why?” I ask.”Ithought that was every vampire’s dream. To have a partner to spend eternity with.”

“Eternity is a long time and it doesn’t always work out that way,” Jareth says, a bit bitterly. “It’s worse to love some-one and then lose them, then to never love at all.”

“Heh. I know the feeling.”

“Oh?”

I feel my face heat. I hadn’t meant to be so revealing.

“Ah, nothing,” I stammer. “It’s just… my dad. He took off four years ago to find himself. Haven’t seem him since.”

“And you miss him,” Jareth says softly. It’s not a ques-tion. Or a judgment. Or even pity.

“Well, yeah. I mean, sure I do. Sometimes. Though some-times I don’t.” I know I’m not making a lot of sense, but I’m not really used to talking about this stuff. Especially not to a hot vampire in a broom closet.

“But anyway, I guess it doesn’t matter now. He’s coming for our birthday this week. So I mean, I guess it’s all good.” I pause, feeling awkward and not knowing what to say.

“Yes. That seems very good,” Jareth says, a bit distantly.

“What about you? What’s your story?” I ask, so ready to change the subject. “What makes you such a bitter biter?”

“It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now.”

Hm. Stubborn. But I’ll get it out of him. “It obviously does. It obviously upsets you. Maybe it’d feel good to talk about it. To a stranger.”

“A stranger like you?”

“Sure. I can’t say I’ll be able to give wise advice, but I’d be happy to listen. And we’ve got time.”

“But you’re a slayer.”

“Dude. I’m like a good slayer—”

Jareth suddenly puts a hand over my mouth. I stop talking and listen. Footsteps. Coming closer. Shit. I hope the cleaning crew doesn’t need to get into the broom closet. We’ll totally be caught!

I look up at Jareth questioningly, having no idea what to do. His eyes are wide and frightened.

“Follow my lead,” he whispers.

And then he leans down and kisses me!!!

***

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Uh, sorry, have to continue this later. Mom’s totally yelling at me to get to bed… .

POSTED BYRAYNE MCDONALD @ 1 P.M.

TWO COMMENTS:

CandyGrrl says …

He kissed u!?!?! How can u leave us hanging like this? Tell ur mom this is more important! Gah!

Soulsearcher says …

Making out in a funeral home. Sooo romantic. Oh, so ro-mantic.

SunshineBaby says …

You kissed Jareth? Dude, I’m your twin! How come I’m al-ways the last to know?

THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 8 A.M.

Closet Kisses and a Lot of Wishes

Quick entry before school since you’re all annoyed that I had to cut out at the kissing scene. Believe me, I didn’t want to leave you hanging either, but Mom was being totally adamant. I think she’s still pissed that we scared off her date. Oh, and speaking of? I think she’s still seeing the guy. Grrr. I’ve got to have a talk with her.

Anyway, where I left off: footsteps approaching and I’m getting ravaged by the sexiest vampire on earth. But forget the footsteps. You just want to know about the ravaging, right? Heh.
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You know how I said how heavenly the bite from Jareth was? Well, the kiss he gave me last night was even better, if you can believe it!

Here’s how it went down:

His mouth captures mine. I know that sounds funny, but that’s exactly what it seems like. Total domination of my lips. I’m so surprised that my jaw drops, which inadvertently al-lows him full access. And he takes advantage, his lips pressing hard against mine, his tongue finding my own and meeting it with almost a worshipful caress. Obviously it’s hard to de-scribe kisses, but think of your best kiss ever and multiply it by three and a half million and you’re probably pretty close. Every nerve ending in my body is like, singing, at this point. Just like in romance books, there’s, like, this electricity flow-ing through my veins. Suddenly I don’t care why we’re kiss-ing or the fact that we’re probably, like, this close to getting busted by whoever’s coming to the closet. All I can think of, focus on, is his lips against mine. Half of me wishes you could all kiss Jareth, just so you can feel for yourselves. The other half hopes that Jareth never kisses anyone else but me for the rest of eternity.

The footsteps fade and Jareth pulls away, way too soon for my liking.

“Sorry,” he says, his normally pale face bright red. “I just figured if they caught us, it’d be better to look like we snuck off together, than were hiding for some other more nefarious purpose.” I nod, not trusting my voice at the moment. I’m madly praying the footsteps come back so we can go for round two. But I’m just not that lucky. Whoever it was hits the lights and slams the front door closed. They’re out.

I involuntarily lick my lower lip, nearly desperate for an-other taste. So delicious. So, so delicious. My whole body is humming. I’m dying to just jump him. I wonder what he’d do if I did. Would he pull away?

Be disgusted? Or does he feel the same attraction I do? I wish I knew. We stand in silence, still so close that I can feel Jareth’s cool breath on my face. I wonder for a moment why vampires need to breathe, seeing as they’re technically not alive. I’ll have to look it up later. Five minutes go by. Then five more. It seems like an eter-nity. I wish, not for the first time, that we could kiss again. But Jareth seems to be stuck in full-on listening mode.

Finally he speaks.

“I think they’re gone. We’re safe,” he says. He pushes open the door and puts a hand around the small of my back to lead me out into the hallway. Just that small touch sparks a thrill strong enough to curl my toes. I wonder what it’d be like to get it on with him for real. I probably wouldn’t be able to han-dle it. Would he be rough and demanding? Or gentle, soft, and sweet? And what would he be like afterward?

Would hewant to cuddle? Or, like most of my past boyfriends, reach forthe PlayStation controller, afterward. I’m so over those guys.

Guess I’ll never know. And there’s no use fantasizing about it, now is there?

Anyhow, we creep through the dark hallway, down the stairs, and into the basement. There, Jareth finds a hanging light and pulls the string, enveloping the room in a dim yel-lowy glow. I look around, my breath catching in my throat as I recognize what surrounds me.

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Corpses. Everywhere I look. Freak-y. I’ve never seen dead bodies in real life before. Of course, they don’t seem to bother Jareth even the slightest. I guess that’s probably because technically speaking he’s a living, walking, breathing corpse himself. He heads straight over to the wall, where there’s a large filing cabinet-like setup and starts reading the drawer labels. He pauses at one and then pulls open the drawer. Out pops (surprise, sur-prise) another body. Ugh. I’m so going to have nightmares to-night. This is worse than the time Spider and I had an all-night
Friday the 13th-
watching marathon. Every time I closed my eyes for weeks later I saw hockey-masked Jason lumbering up to me with his machete, ready to creatively murder me for my sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll sins.

“This is one of them,” he says, motioning me over. “And she hasn’t been drained yet. Excellent.” He reaches into his black leather trench coat pocket (way cool) and pulls out a small silver dagger, an empty vial, and a pair of rubber gloves, which he slips on his hands.

“Wait. You’re not going to—” I start, stopping only when I realize indeed he is going to do just that. He draws a small slash across her arm and holds the vial underneath to catch the blood. I involuntarily cringe. He looks up and laughs when he sees my face. “Relax, dear,” he says. “She can’t feel it. She’s already dead.”

“Iknow,” I say, annoyed, but more at myself than at him. Some super vampire-chick-in-training I’m turning out to be— afraid of a little blood. What’s going to happen when I have to dine on it every night?

Maybe I’ll do what Jareth does and get takeout. At least that way I can pretend it’s wine or some-thing. Though it sort of takes all the romance out of the pro-cess.

The vial fills quickly and Jareth plugs it with a small rubber stopper. Then he reaches into his pocket again and pulls out a small cloth, which he presses against the open wound. “To stop the blood,” he explains.

“Don’t want her to bleed to death, eh?” I quip.

He grins. “Definitely not,” he says. “Not to mention the smell of the stuff is driving me crazy. It’s taking everything I’ve got not to lean down and take a sip.”

“You’d better not. We don’t know what’s in that stuff. What if she is the reason Kristoff’s out of commission?”

“Exactly. That would be … as you humans say … so not cool.” He says it in a total valley girl voice, causing me to giggle. He really can be funny when he’s not being a jerk.

“I’m glad I can make you laugh,” he says with a small smile and I totally feel my face going beet red. I have no idea how to respond to him, but luckily it turns out I don’t have to. A moment later he removes the cloth and examines the corpse’s wound. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s get out of this place.” We leave the funeral home and Jareth drops me off at my place. The good-bye scene is tres awkward for some reason. As if neither of us really wants to part company. And as if both of us want a goodnight kiss when we do. Unfortunately, we’re both total chickens and instead of confessing our de-sires we stumble over our goodnights with much stammering and blushing and I get out of the car and head for the house.

And that’s about it. Time for (sigh) me to head to school. TTYL.

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