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Mallory and I exchanged a glance as she twirled a lock of hair around her finger. "Yes, dahling," she said, doing a lovely Zsa-Zsa Gabor imitation, "vam-piahs ah exhausting."
I faked a smile, and drove us home.
I was brushing my teeth in ratty pajamas - an ex-boyfriend's pale green T-shirt that read I'M A ZOMBIE and a pair of frayed boxers - when Mallory, still in her club clothes, rushed into the upstairs bathroom and slammed the door shut. I paused midbrush, and looked at her expectantly.
"So, I have to break up with Mark."
I grinned. "That may not be a bad idea," I agreed and resumed brushing. Mallory stepped next to me in front of the counter and met my gaze in the mirror.
"I'm serious."
"I know. But you were talking about breaking up with Mark before you met Catcher." I finished brushing, splashed a little water in my mouth, and spit. Thank God for friends who were close enough to watch you brush without getting grossed out.
"I know. He's not right for me. But it's really late, and I need sleep, and I feel really weird about this I-got-my-job-because-I-wished-for-it thing. And then there's Catcher."
She quieted, obviously thinking, and her silence left a space for strains of noise from the downstairs television, which floated through the house. A narrator was describing the plight of a battered woman who'd overcome adversity, cancer, and desperate poverty to start a new life with her children.
I wiped my mouth on a towel and looked at her. "And the fact that he's downstairs watching the Lifetime channel again."
She scratched her head. "He finds it inspiring?"
I leaned a hip against the bathroom counter. "You should go for it."
"I'm just not sure. All of a sudden, about this, I'm not sure. Work, I'm sure about. Your fangs, I'm fine with. But this boy. He's got baggage, and magic, and I don't know. . . ."
I hugged her, understanding that this wasn't just about Catcher, but her acknowledgment of the new shape of her life. Of the fact that her interest in the occult, in magic, had become something much, much more personal.
"Whatever you do," I told her, "I'll be here."
Mallory sniffed, pulling back to dab carefully at the tears that lay beneath her blue eyes. "Yeah, but you're immortal. You've got the time."
"You're such a cow." I walked out of the bathroom and flipped off the light, leaving her in the dark.
"Uh, who ate her weight in sausage earlier tonight?"
I laughed and walked into my bedroom. "Have fun with Romeo," I told her, and shut the door behind me. In the cool quiet of the bedroom, it still being a couple of hours from dawn, I snagged back the blankets, lit the lamp next to the bed, and settled in with a book of fairy tales. It didn't occur to me that given the current shape of my life, I didn't need to read them. I was living them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FANGS MEAN NEVER HAVING
TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY.
At sunset I woke to the smell of tomatoes and garlic, and trundled downstairs in my pajamas. The television blared, but the living room was empty. I shuffled into the kitchen and found Mallory and Catcher at the kitchen island, both tucking into plates of spaghetti with meat sauce. My stomach growled. "I don't suppose there's any of that left?"
"Stove," Catcher said, gnawing on the end of a piece of baguette. "We left it out. Knew you'd be down."
Did we? I wondered with a smile, and shuffled to the stove. I wasn't sure how I felt about spaghetti for breakfast - or breakfast at nearly eight at night - but my stomach suffered no qualms, grumbling loudly as I poured the remains of the pot onto a plate. Seeking a drink, I went to the refrigerator to grab a soda. But my hand paused over the bags of blood, my teeth suddenly pulsing with the urge to sink into a bag. I touched my tongue to my teeth, felt the prick of my descended eyeteeth. Gone, though, was that raging, aggressive hunger I'd felt two days ago. Still, I pulled out a bag of type A and looked tentatively at Mallory and Catcher.
"I need blood," I told them, "but I can take it somewhere else if you're grossed out."
Mallory chuckled and chewed a forkful of spaghetti. "You're asking for permission to bite me? 'Cause you should know I don't care about the other thing."
I smiled gratefully and, permission granted, pulled a clean glass from the cabinet and filled it from the bag. I wasn't sure how long to heat it, so I set the microwave timer for just a few seconds, popped it in, and closed the door. When it dinged, I nearly lurched forward in eagerness to get to it, and drained the glass in seconds. The blood had a faintly plasticky aftertaste, presumably from the bag, but it was well worth the trouble. I repeated the move - pour, heat, sip - until I'd drained the bag, then patted my stomach happily, took my plate of spaghetti, and pulled out a stool next to Catcher.
"That took all of three minutes," he pointed out, sprinkling red pepper across his noodles.
"And was kind of anticlimactic," Mal said, "since you just stared at the microwave the entire time. I figured you'd at least give some kind of invocation, maybe some gnawing the plastic. Growling." She ate another forkful of spaghetti, then offered, "Clawing the ground. Barking."
"I'm a vampire, not a corgie," I reminded her and tucked into my own spaghetti. "So," I offered, when I'd chowed a couple of tasty forkfuls. Say what you wanted about Catcher's attitude, the boy could cook. "What happened around here today?"
"Mark's going to start skydiving," Catcher said. "Fortunately, we don't have to care anymore."
Mallory gave him a skewering glance. "I really wish you wouldn't put it like that. He has feelings, you know."
"Mmm-hmmm."
"You could also temper that attitude a little," Mallory warned, sliding off her stool. She dumped her plate in the sink and stalked out of the kitchen.
"Trouble in paradise?" I asked when she was gone, sliding Catcher a glance.
He lifted a shoulder. "She had Mark come over so she could break up with him in person. He was pretty upset. They both cried."
"Ah."
We ate silently until we'd cleaned our plates, and he put both in the sink. "Let's give her some space. We'll go to the gym. I'll give you a couple of hours. Then I need to get to the office."
"On a Saturday?"
He only shrugged in response. Catcher, I was learning, was a careful guard of information. The skill probably made him invaluable to my grandfather.
As we left the kitchen, I asked, "Can I hold your sword today?"
