There was a shift in the background noise, footsteps, maybe the sound of someone else calling for the phone. Then, abruptly, Allison said, “Gotta go. Don’t forget to text. Love you.”
Avery echoed her twin. “Love you, Lukey.”
They hung up before I could respond. I let the silence fill the cab for a long mile, the road straight and featureless, the van a metal bubble of inertia. We’d been told we wouldn’t be able to contact each other for a year, but it seemed the one way the vampires in charge of the farm were lax was letting the inmates check in with their families.
Izora cleared her throat. “They’re tougher than they look.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. I just drove, knuckles white against the wheel. Every time I reached out, every time I made contact, I was reminded how easily things could slip out of my control.
For a while, I let myself feel it, the ugly, sticky love that complicated every part of my unlife. Then I locked it away, filed it behind the task at hand, and set my sights on the betting parlor’s neon halo blinking through the morning haze. Time to work. Time to be the thing I was worst at.
We rolled into the strip mall’s parking lot just after eight, the sun barely clearing the apartment blocks across the way. Izora clocked the betting parlor before I did, a neon halo buzzing “OFF-TRACK BETTING” in half-lit letters, the glow paler and more desperate than in the promo photos. The windows were already fogged, inside air thick with the reek of cigarette smoke.
I cut the engine and scanned for movement. Marvin’s car was parked two rows down, sandwiched between a beat up Camry and a pick-up that looked to have survived a good five presidential administrations. The only way to spot Marvin’s as his was the sticker on the rear bumper. “HONK IF YOU LOVE TATER TOTS.”
Inside, Marvin was at the five-dollar window, counting a wad of cash with the panicked focus of someone who didn’t trust the math or his hands.
Izora watched my face as I assessed the entry points, then arched an eyebrow. “You want finesse or drama?”
“Start with finesse,” I said. “If that fails, switch to interpretive dance.”
We went in through the side, avoiding the main entrance. The parlor reeked of beer, sweat, and whatever cleaning products they’d stopped using after the smoking ban. The walls were lined with ancient television screens, all tuned to different tracks, horses with improbable names crawling across the ticker at the bottom. Maybe fifteen people in the room, none of them less than fifty or more than a week from dying of something preventable.
I angled toward the counter, badge visible but not drawn, and placed myself between Marvin and the parlor’s back corridor. Izora hung back by the ATM, where she could watch the crowd while cuddling Courage.
Marvin didn’t look up until I was within five feet, but the moment he noticed my reflection showed in the glass of the tote board. His left shoulder twitched, and his jaw reset into the defiant tilt of a man who already knows the outcome but refuses to leave the table.
I said, quietly, “Marvin. You know why I’m here.”
He turned, all wide-eyed innocence, and said, “I just want to place a bet. Is that illegal now?”
It was the most coherent sentence I’d heard from him yet.
Behind me, Izora’s voice lilted across the room. “Bail enforcement. Sorry for the interruption.”
The words worked like a hand grenade. Three men in the center row immediately slid off their stools and pretended to find something on the floor. A woman in a pink windbreaker looked from me to Izora, decided she didn’t want the smoke, as the twins would say, and shuffled sideways until she reached the Keno station. The counter attendant just kept counting bills, without even blinking.
Marvin’s mouth tightened. He weighed the odds, and, in the way of all bad gamblers, decided to up the ante.
He threw his duffel bag at an old man in a golf visor, scattering a flurry of losing tickets, then vaulted over the plastic divider. A beer went flying, coating the carpet and the shoes of anyone in a four-foot radius. He careened into the kitchen, ignoring the shouts of a short-order cook who wanted nothing to do with this scene. He also didn’t want the smoke. I followed, vaulting the divider less gracefully, and nearly lost my footing on the spilled beer.
“Stop and put your hands up!” I shouted. Hey, that’s what they do on TV. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Marvin was already past the fry station, yanking a basket of hot oil from the vat and swinging it at random. The basket missed my face by maybe four inches, but the sizzle of oil caught my sleeve and flash-fried the edge of my jacket. For a second, the air tasted like scorched polyester.
I forced myself to slow down. Vampire speed is a thing, but so is involuntary manslaughter, and nothing tanks a bounty hunter rating like a headline with the wrong name on it. I duckedbehind a rolling cart, waited for Marvin to commit to a direction, then tackled him around the waist as he tried for the back door.
We crashed through together, slamming into a cinderblock wall in the alley. Marvin thrust his elbow back, catching me in the ribs, and I felt the pop of something unpleasant but not immediately catastrophic. Once again, I was thankful for being a vamp.
He pulled away, sprinted for the chain-link fence at the far end, and for a moment, I actually admired his stamina. The guy lived on vape pens and convenience-store hot dogs, but he moved like a rat in a flood.
I chased, but not all-out; I wanted him winded, not broken. He scaled the fence, caught his jeans on the wire, and lost a sneaker in the process. By the time I climbed after him, he was halfway down the next alley, limping but still in the lead.
I saw where this was headed. Two blocks over, the parking structure for the strip mall rose above the strip of abandoned storefronts, its top floor the only place a guy like Marvin could hope to lose a tail. I jogged, breath steady, letting the distance close in its time. Izora, who had apparently decided to take the scenic route, met me at the alley’s mouth, her boots spotless and her hat at a jaunty new angle. Courage was strapped to her chest with one of those cloth baby carrier things. Where she got it, I had no clue. How she’d had time to get it on I also had no clue. Then again, I didn’t make it a habit to question the mother of all vampires.
I looked away but did a double-take. Did the dog have a helmet on?
Don’t ask. Why on earth had I gotten stuck with Izora tonight?
