In fact, I never wanted to get used to her words. Hell, I was doing all that I could to eradicate her from my life, forever.
I get the heebie-jeebies, too, Sam, came Allison’s own distinct voice in my head. A softer voice, and maybe a little nasal.
Nasal? Now that’s just rude.
But true, I thought.
Whatever.
Mary Lou stopped running, although her chest didn’t get the memo. It jiggled and settled for a few long seconds afterward. “You two are doing it again.” My sister might have sounded exasperated.
You are entirely too focused on your sister’s chest, thought Allison.
Quiet, I hissed mentally, I think we’re in trouble. And I’m not focused on her chest. It’s just, well, so big. How can you not focus on it?
“Unbelievable! The two of you are actually still doing it while I’m standing here pissed. I’m going home.”
“Wait, Mary Lou,” I said, grabbing her shoulder. She had turned off the boardwalk and was about to cross some random parking lot. We were at least a mile or so from where our cars were parked. “I’m sorry. Really, I am. Telepathy is just, well, easy. And this one—” I jabbed a finger at Allison “—always seems to be in my mind.”
“Well, you’re always in my mind.”
I ignored her, although we both knew that wasn’t true.
Speak for yourself, she thought.
“Unbelievable,” said Mary Lou. “Please tell me you aren’t still doing it. Please tell me you wouldn’t keep disrespecting me like that.”
She was about to storm off when I caught her elbow. She yanked her arm free—or tried to—and only succeeded in hurting herself. She yelped and I released her. She now stormed down the boardwalk. At least she was going in the right direction. Allison and I watched her go.
“Well,” I said, “what a fine mess you got me into.”
“She’ll be okay,” said Allison.
I sighed. My sister could hold a grudge with the best of them...and she was only now coming out of her shell over the traumatic events of a few months ago. No, she hadn’t seen my husband get killed, hadn’t watched the dagger plunge into his chest, as I had. But she had heard him die. She had heard him scream out...and she had heard his ragged breathing as the blood from the wound had filled his lungs.
Yeah, she had been traumatized, perhaps even for life. I took in a big lungful of worthless air and watched her go, walking as fast as she could away from me.
I sighed again and grabbed Allison. “Let’s catch up to her.”
Chapter Eight
I was alone in my garage.
Not too long ago, I had broken up with my last boyfriend in this very garage. That something like me could even have something so normal as a “boyfriend” was almost laughable. But I had tried. And I had tried with a mortal, someone who wasn’t a bloodsucker.
I swiped open a packet of cow and pig blood with a fingernail that was too long and too sharp to be normal. Concealing my hands was one of the many drags in my life. Drinking from these filthy packets was another.
Yes, a few months ago, my relationship had come to an end when I had finally realized that my boyfriend, Russell, was, in fact, a love slave. No, not a sex slave. There’s a difference. He was devoted to me unerringly, irrationally, supernaturally. I didn’t so much as break up with him as release him.
Instantly, the strong, coppery, putrid smell of nearly rancid animal blood wafted up from the open packet. Mercifully, the butchery had delivered a cleaner-than-usual batch of blood, with the last few packets being nearly contaminant-free. In fact, I had almost—almost—enjoyed the packets.
Okay, that might be pushing it. But at least I hadn’t gagged.
I wasn’t so lucky with this bag. As I looked at the opaque bag, now swollen with blood—like a fat, wingless mosquito—I saw the hair and flotsam. Bits of bone and dirt and muscle and sinew—whatever had been collected as the pigs and cows bled out.
As I watched the particles drift within the bag, I realized something disconcerting. There were, if anything, even more particles. Perhaps the other bags had been cleaner, but I doubted it. I had assumed they were cleaner because I hadn’t gagged, because I had, in fact, quite enjoyed the bag of filth. No, not as much as I enjoyed drinking from Allison. Drinking from her was...heavenly.
But the past two bags had been quite...tasty.
Uh oh, I thought.
Now, as I raised it before me, careful not to spill the precious contents and watched the constellation of filth rotate slowly, I knew I was in trouble.
Real trouble.
But I didn’t care. This was blood, after all. Precious blood.
Delicious blood.
Not as delicious as Allison, but it was good enough.
“Good enough,” I whispered, and a small part of me tried to rebel when I licked my lips. “Yes, good enough.”
Now, with my children doing homework in the house adjacent to the garage—and, no doubt, sneaking in time on the Xbox One—I tilted the bag of filth to my lips...and drained every last drop. I even tore open the bag and licked it clean.
Lord help me.
Chapter Nine
You there, Fang?
It was the same question I asked night after night, for the past three weeks, logging on to my old AIM instant message account. The same account Fang and I had first connected through. The account where I had told a complete stranger all of my secrets. Secrets he had used to eventually find me.
I often wondered if I had wanted Fang to find me. If I had, in fact, purposely dropped enough clues for him to eventually locate me in my small part of the world.
Fang, at the time, had been my only connection to the supernatural. Although not supernatural himself at that time, he had been my source of all things vampiric. His knowledge had been deep and accurate and I missed our easy word play and mild flirtation. In short, I missed my confidant.
Sometimes, I wanted to believe that he had been stolen from me, but I knew that wasn’t the case. He got exactly what he had always wanted: immortality. He had simply taken matters into his own hands...and had joined the wrong team.
But what was done was done. Fang had gotten his wish, and a whole lot of people were dead because of it. No, my ex-husband’s murder wasn’t a direct result, but the turning of Fang had caused a domino effect that was still reverberating in my life to this day.
And, yeah, there was the small matter of those joggers Fang had killed. Those and surely others. Perhaps many others.
I couldn’t think about that.
Suddenly depressed, I sat back in my office chair and looked at my cell phone. No texts. No missed calls. Not even a Facebook update. The world was asleep at this hour. The mortal world. My kids were sound asleep. Although Anthony was showing some disturbing vampiric tendencies, one of them, thankfully, was not sleeping during the day.