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Pearl nodded, and took another drink.
“Do you know who destroyed Travis?” Edna asked, resuming her seat on the sofa.
“Some hunter based on the West Coast. Lee? Lou . . . ?”
“Not Lou McDonald!” Edna exclaimed, her eyes wide. “Tell me it wasn’t McDonald.”
“Yes, dear, that’s the one,” Pearl said, and then murmured, “Oh, my, that’s not good, is it?”
“No.” Edna took another sip from her glass. “I have some other, equally disturbing news,” she said with a frown. “Or maybe it’s good news. I heard that Mara has lost her powers.”
Pearl stared at her friend over the rim of her wineglass. “You must have heard wrong, dear. That’s impossible.”
Edna shrugged. “Well, that’s what I heard.”
“Was the source reliable?” Pearl asked, her voice rising with excitement. “Maybe she’s found a cure! Do you think she’d share it with us?”
“I don’t know. I also heard she’s somewhere in California. If we could find her, and ask her . . .”
“Yes,” Pearl said. “And if she refuses . . .”
“Maybe we could get some of her blood . . .”
“And find a cure ourselves!” they finished in unison.
“Oh, to be human again,” Pearl said wistfully. “To enjoy a lovely glass of iced tea on a warm summer day, or sip a nice cup of hot cocoa in front of the fire . . . chocolate!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Edna, do you remember the taste of chocolate?”
“Not really,” Edna replied. She had forgotten so many things since becoming Nosferatu. Pearl remained the only constant in her life. She wouldn’t have wished being a vampire on anyone, but she was forever grateful that Rafe Cordova, that self-righteous bloodsucker, had turned her and Pearl at the same time. She couldn’t imagine what her life would be without her best friend. “Pearl . . . ?”
“Yes, dear?”
“I’m not sure I’d want to be mortal again.”
Pearl stared at her in disbelief. “I don’t believe what I’m hearing.”
“Think about it, about what we’d be giving up. Do you want to go back to being a weak old lady? How many years would we have left if we were human again? I like feeling good all the time. I like not needing my glasses to read. And what about you? Your arthritis doesn’t bother you anymore, does it? Except for the blood thing, I like being a vampire. And even that’s not as bad as I thought it would be.”
Pearl sat up straighter, a sudden sparkle in her eyes. “You’re right, of course, dear.”
“It doesn’t mean we can’t keep looking for a cure for the werewolves,” Edna said brightly. “After all, they’re nothing but a menace to human and Nosferatu alike.”
“That’s true.”
“And the weather in California is much nicer than it is here in Texas at this time of the year.”
“And there’s nothing to keep us here, now that Travis is gone,” Pearl added, warming to the idea.
“And McDonald is in California,” Edna reminded her. “We could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.”
“Yes,” Pearl said, and then grinned. “Once we were hunters hunting vampires. Now we’re vampires hunting hunters. I find that amusing, don’t you?”
“Yes, indeed,” Edna said. Draining her glass, she threw it into the fireplace where it shattered against the back wall, the tiny pieces of glass raining down on the flames in a shower of rainbow-hued crystal. “Let’s go pack!”
After draining her own glass, Pearl tossed it into the fire. “California, here we come!”
Chapter Twenty-six
Mara looked up from the magazine she had been reading, and frowned. “Kyle, you’re staring at me again.”
“Am I? I’m sorry, I can’t seem to stop.”
“Is something wrong?” she asked, laying the magazine aside. It was a silly question, she thought. She was pregnant. She had no friends, no doctor, and, in spite of the books she’d read, no idea how to take care of the infant once it arrived.
“What could be wrong?” Kyle asked with a wry grin. “You’re expecting a baby any day now and the only help you’ve got is me.”
She tried to think of something reassuring to say, but nothing came to mind. Hadn’t she just been thinking the same thing? The baby would be here soon, she thought. She had been having contractions for the last couple of days. Braxton Hicks, her doctor had called them. She had gone online and looked up Braxton Hicks. The contractions had been named after an English doctor, John Braxton Hicks, back in 1872. Most of the time, the contractions were uncomfortable, but not painful. According to an article online, if she had more than four contractions in an hour, and if the pain escalated, it was probably time to call the doctor. She hadn’t mentioned the contractions to Kyle. He was worried enough.
Kyle drummed his fingers on the arm of the sofa. Too worried to sit still any longer, he began to pace the floor. He didn’t know a damn thing about childbirth, and neither did she. What if something went wrong? What if the baby was breach? What if Mara hemorrhaged? He swore softly. There were a hundred things that could go wrong during labor and delivery and he wasn’t equipped to handle any of them. He was an artist, not a damned doctor.
“Go pack a bag,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Porterville.” He held up a hand to still her protest. “I know you don’t want to go, but I don’t care. We can’t do this alone. There are just too many things that could go wrong. And since you’re dead set against going to a hospital, Porterville’s the only other option we’ve got.”
“I don’t want to . . .”
“Hey! We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. The easy way, you pack a bag and we go. The hard way, I stuff you into a bag and we go. It’s your choice.”
“Kyle . . .”
“I’m not kidding, sweetie. I can handle McDonald if she shows up. But what about that doctor? He’s a frickin’ vampire. If he comes looking for you, neither one of us stands a chance against him, and you know it.”
In the end, that was the argument that swayed Mara.
Forty minutes later, their bags were packed and in the trunk of Kyle’s car and they were on the road to Porterville.
