The Dangers of Dating a Rebound Vampire (3 page)

“Stop it, right now!” I squirmed against his chest, pushing the cage of his arms to put some space between us.

Not a word. Not one facial twitch. No response, except pressing me tightly against his chest and wrapping his and around my throat, making it almost impossible for me to breathe. But he still didn't say anything, which was completely weird. Vampires were notoriously chatty during violence. And he wasn't biting me, which was even weirder.

My new boyfriend was either a manipulative mugger or a remedial vampire. I wasn't sure which was the better option.

I struggled, wiggling my arm loose, and reached for the ugly agate brooch on my lapel. With the press of a button, a cloud of colloidal silver spray mushroomed around my head. It was harmless to me, but as this guy was a vampire and therefore allergic to silver in all its forms, it stung enough to make him loosen his grip as he coughed and spluttered against my neck.

“I don't want to hurt you,” I told him through gritted teeth. “But I will.”

Bold words from the girl in the rumpled pantsuit.

Still twitching and retching, he loosened his hold enough that I could reach into my purse and grab the hairbrush strapped into a special compartment. The ordinary-looking purple plastic brush was another one of Cal's security contraptions. I squeezed the bristles until a silver stake popped out of the handle, and I rammed the point into my assailant's thigh. It wouldn't kill him, but he certainly wouldn't be chasing after me anytime soon.

“Augh!” he cried, letting go of my arms entirely and dropping me to the pavement like a sack of potatoes.

Cal would be thrilled to know his security equipment was effective.

My knees almost buckled from the landing, but I planted my feet. It was a good choice, considering that all of his weight pitched forward onto my back and bent me in half. The hands gripped at my hair, keeping my head down. I reached back, searching for the brush. I pulled it from his leg with a sizzling hiss, like angry bacon. No bacon should be angry.

I had raised it to stab the other leg when he suddenly shoved me aside. With one last, regretful look, he took off at vampire speed down the asphalt, disappearing from sight.

“Yeah, you better run.” I panted, bending at the waist so I could prop myself on my knees and catch my breath. But the slick material of my suit gave way under my sweat-soaked palms, and my hands slid right off. I pitched forward and, unable to catch myself, toppled face-first onto the pavement.

Ouch.

2

Vampires have a very strong startle response. Try to stay calm. Imagine you're working with a nervous cat strapped to a stick of old dynamite.

—The Office After Dark: A Guide to Maintaining a Safe, Productive Vampire Workplace

H
e ran.

I sat there, completely bewildered, clutching my hairbrush just in case Blond-and-Gone came back. I couldn't believe that after five months of fantasizing about my mystery vampire, he'd just run off. That is, after kissing me and jumping me in a parking lot, and not in the fun way.

What the hell just happened?

“Gigi!” I heard a familiar voice yell from behind the cars. “Gigi, where are you?”

“Here!” I shouted.

Dick Cheney—the vampire, not the former vice president—materialized in front of me, nearly sliding under the SUV, he'd been running so fast. “I've got her.” Dick spoke into the cell phone pressed to his ear. “She seems to be OK. I'll call in a few minutes.”

I was dazed enough that I didn't move out of his way as he hung up the phone and scooted closer.

“Gigi,” he whispered, ever so gently lifting my chin so he could inspect the pavement scrapes on my cheek. “What happened?”

Tall and rangy, with mischievous seawater eyes and dirty-blond hair, Dick Cheney represented an unlikely blend of fierce loyalty and pure sketchiness. He filled the “unreliable but adorable uncle” role in my life, while his lovely wife, Andrea, was my grown-up fashion icon. Dick had taken pains to become more legitimate over the years under Andrea's positive influence. He'd stopped wearing quite so many inappropriate T-shirts and invested in a number of
legal
businesses, but deep down, he would always be the guy you called when you needed the number for a topless housekeeping service.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, stretching my jaw to check for breaks.

“The panic button on your key sends an alarm to Cal's cell phone,” he said, almost sheepishly. “And I might have been waiting a block away so I could follow you on the drive home. Because Cal asked me to, not because I'm creepy or anything. When your alarm went off, he called me and told me to get my butt down here on the double.”

I rolled my eyes, but the movement made me dizzy, so I just glared at him. “You, sir, are enabling a helicopter vampire.”

“Cal's just concerned for you!” he exclaimed, gesturing to my face. “And rightly so. What happened to you?”

“A vampire attacked me, the deceitful bastard.”

Dick frowned. “Deceitful?”

“Never mind.”

“Did you recognize the vampire who attacked you?”

“No,” I wheezed, the weird, unsure tone of my voice undone by the pain provoked when Dick pressed his thumbs against my jaw. Technically, it was true. I didn't recognize him. I had no clue who he was. That didn't stop my feelings from being hurt. Jerk. “He just came up behind me and grabbed me.”

Dick tilted my face away from him so he could search my neck for wounds. “But he didn't bite you.”

“He didn't even try,” I told him. “Which I thought was weird. But he might not have had time. I unleashed the full complement of antivampire Cal-tech on him.”

“Really?” He beamed at me.

I laughed and realized I must have split my lip when my face smacked the ground. Hissing, I pressed my hand over it.

Dick took out a pocket-sized first-aid kit and dabbed at my mouth with an antiseptic wipe. At my raised eyebrow, he explained, “When you work with Jane Jameson, you learn to be prepared for anything.”

I recalled Jane's supernatural origin story, which involved being mistaken for a deer, shot by a drunk hunter, and turned into a vampire. “Fair enough.”

He pulled me to my feet and tried to pick me up.

“I am not four years old,” I told him. “I will walk. Now, where the hell are my shoes?”

His lips quirked into a fond little smile, reminding me of why I'd entertained a brief but intense schoolgirl crush on Dick for the first few months after my sister was adopted into his social circle. Buried deep underneath the many layers of sketchiness, he was sweet vampire nougat. “Come on, baby doll, let's get you home.”

As we searched the parking lot for my far-flung pumps, I gave Dick a detailed report on how I had used the silver spray brooch and the brush stake. My only regret was that I didn't have a chance with the purse-sized flamethrower, because I was in the mood for toasting my mystery vampire like a hot blond Pop-Tart. Dick was thrilled that Cal's sick little toys had served their purpose and promised to help Cal find me even better tricks for next time. I had a feeling his less reputable connections would be involved somehow.

I filed the appropriate report with Ophelia, who, again, made me wait outside her office while she spoke to Dick. And given the yelling I could hear from Dick, I was sort of glad to be on this particular side of the door. Dick was not impressed with the security offered to the Council's human employees, and he was making his displeasure as an undead citizen known at vocal decibels I didn't know existed. This didn't seem to faze Ophelia in the least, as she tossed Dick out of her office without a word of apology to me.

After informing me that my unflappable boss expected me at my desk at the beginning of my shift the next day—assault was no excuse for tardiness—Dick insisted on leaving his El Camino at the Council office and driving my car home. I would have argued with him, but the adrenaline was slowly draining out of my system, and I felt as if I'd been hit by a truck.

“Is there any sort of bribe I can offer that would allow you to handle this quietly, in a way that will not result in my sister completely freaking out?”

“Well, that is going to be a problem,” Dick said, as we pulled into the driveway to find a half-dozen cars parked in front of our house. I recognized Miranda Puckett's special black vampire-transport SUV and Gabriel Nightengale's sensible blue sedan.

I turned in my seat, glaring at Dick. “What did you do?”

“I may have made a few phone calls on the way to get you.”

“You sent up the Bat Signal?” I cried. “Before you even knew what was wrong with me?”

“Somebody had to keep Iris contained!” he exclaimed. “She gets the same alarms from your key fob. I knew it would take that many vampires to hold her down.”

I closed my eyes, shaking my head. “This . . . this is not going to go well.”

Dick patted my arm sympathetically. “No, it is not.”

•   •   •

I fixed my face as best
I could in the makeup mirror and straightened my clothes. There was nothing to be done about the scrape on my cheek, but everything else I could cover with powder. The moment the car engine shut off, Cal and Iris swept out of the house in a blur of movement. Iris got to me first, lifting me off the ground in a bear hug. “Gigi!”

“Human!” I wheezed, as Iris squeezed the breath from my lungs and sobbed into my tattered jacket. Cal wrapped his arms around us both, resting his head against my bruised cheek. Over his shoulder, I saw Jane Jameson-Nightengale step out onto the porch with her tall, dark, and fangsome husband, Gabriel, and her childe, Jamie, who also happened to be my best friend. They stood on the porch, and while they weren't related, it was amazing that they all wore matching expressions of concern.

Also, I still couldn't breathe.

“Oxygen!” I wheezed against Iris's grip. Shrugging loose, I asked, “OK, who's ready for a thorough discussion of boundaries?”

“Sorry! I'm sorry.” She sniffed, dropping me gently to my feet. “I just got so scared when the alarm went off, and Jamie and Jane had to pin me to the ceiling. And I bit Gabriel's arm—I'm really sorry about that, Gabriel!” she called back over her shoulder.

“It's all right,” he said, rubbing absently at his torn sleeve. “It's better than what Jane would have
done.”

I looked at Jane, who just nodded, because she knew he was right.

Jamie took Iris's release of my person as an open invitation to jump in and sweep me off my feet, too. As sunny and blond as a teen vampire could be, Jamie was exactly as he had been when we were classmates at Half-Moon Hollow High. Goofy, open, and affectionate, like a Labrador puppy with fangs.

“You gave us a scare, kid,” he muttered into my hair.

“I'm fine,” I insisted. “You should see the other guy. Hey, what's this?” My hand snagged an envelope that was sticking out of Jamie's back pocket. At this point, I welcomed the distraction and snatched it up for a closer look. “So what's in the envelope?” I asked Jamie, waving the paper at him. “If you haven't noticed, I am in desperate need of a subject change.”

“My schedule!” he said, presenting the paperwork with a flourish. “My adjustment counselor at UK sent it in today's mail!”

I squealed with more excitement than you'd expect over a college class schedule and hopped up and down, hugging Jamie's neck. After spending two semesters proving that he could function in a community-college classroom without devouring his classmates, Jamie was joining me at the University of Kentucky that September.

While I was thrilled about Jamie's secondary education, Ophelia was not happy. She couldn't move three hundred miles to campus with her boyfriend, because she had to stay close to the Council office. She was unhappy about the prospect of Jamie being out of her sight, away from public officials she controlled, near single girls she couldn't track or intimidate. And she seemed to be blaming me for Jamie's abandonment, since I had spent months helping Jamie wade through forms, releases, background checks, and other paperwork that vampire students had to file with their applications.

And Ophelia was my new boss.

For someone with above-average intelligence, I didn't always think my decisions through.

“I can't wait,” he said. “I'm so excited. Thanks for making this happen for me, Geeg.”

“All I did was help you with the paperwork.” I scoffed. “You're the one ducking tradition and your bloodmate in order to major in sports medicine.”

“Former jocks have to major in something,” he said. “And I'm not
ducking
my bloodmate. I am simply following my sire's advice and getting an education. Ophe­lia understands.” When I made an indelicate horselike noise, he added, “She will understand, eventually.”

“Yeah, that should make work less awkward if and when Ophelia ever decides to make eye contact with me,” I muttered.

“OK, as happy as I am for you, Jamie—congratulations—can we change the subject back to my sister's near-death experience?” Iris interjected. “Are you sure you don't need to go to the emergency room or something, Geeg?” She fussed with my disheveled hair. “Did you bump your head or—internal bleeding! You could have internal bleeding and not even know it. Let's just load you into the car and pop down to the hospital for an MRI.”

“I'm fine,” I insisted, shaking Iris gently. “Can we all just please go inside? I'd like to get out of this pantsuit and into some natural fibers.”

I walked through the front door, shrugging out of my jacket and tossing it into the closest wastebasket. Cal and Iris had made the house more vampire-friendly after Iris's transition. Cal's historical presence was represented in the ancient-but-somehow-in-museum-condition bronze shield over the fireplace in the den and a marble bust of harvest goddess Demeter on the entryway table. But Cal had also made serious structural changes with Sam Clemson's help, from heavy-duty sunproof shades mounted under the window shades to a security system that made Fort Knox look like the Bank of Mayberry. And the access door to the basement had been replaced with a much sturdier solid steel version, painted to look like wood but able to stand up to several grades of explosives.

I would call Cal paranoid, but the scuff marks on my face made it hard to poke fun at him.

The moment I walked into the parlor, I got a faceful of British vampire for my trouble. Cool, sandy-haired Collin Sutherland, with whom I'd been on a strict handshakes-and-firm-nods-only level for years, swooped in and threw his arms around me with so much enthusiasm that I was once again swept off my feet. It was nice to know I was loved, but the undead tackle-hugging was starting to become a little much.

“I'm so sorry, Gigi,” Collin whispered. “So, so sorry.”

His girlfriend, Miranda, who worked for Iris in Beeline's vampire-transport department, approached us with a bemused but concerned expression on her puckish face.

“As the only other human here, I'm counting on you to be the voice of reason,” I told her solemnly.

“Who do you think kept them all here?” Miranda said, blowing a strand of dark hair out of her eyes. “Iris tried to rally the others to go to the parking lot and follow the scent trail of whoever hurt you. It was like a small, angry mob with fangs instead of pitchforks. Also, Zeb told me that he's sorry he couldn't be here to represent the other human voice of reason, but the twins are going through a gnawing phase. He didn't want Iris's furniture to get ruined.”